William Elliott (20 October 1754–23 September 1836), Methodist lay leader, was born near present-day Wachapreague, in Accomack County, and was the son of Thomas Elliott, an English immigrant and planter, and Anne Wescott Elliott. Reared in a Church of England family, he became one of the first converts to Methodism on the Eastern Shore, in 1772 by tradition, although there is no surviving record of a Methodist preacher visiting the area before 1778. During the American Revolution the militia company in which Elliott served was called to active duty several times to protect the county from British raids. On 10 December 1781 he married Anzele Bradford, of Accomack County. They had four daughters and three sons, two of whom died in infancy or when still young.

In 1785 Elliott began a Sunday school for his children and servants at his home. He instructed them first in reading and then in Bible study and catechism. The children of friends and neighbors soon began attending as well, but he taught white and enslaved Black children at different hours. It is uncertain whether he knew of the Sunday school movement that had begun spreading rapidly in England early in the 1780s. Elliott's was the first Sunday school on the Eastern Shore, arguably the first in Virginia, and possibly the first in the United States. His was one of the few schools of any kind on the Eastern Shore for several decades. After the establishment of Burton's Chapel Methodist Church in the present Chancetown community in 1801, Elliott and his family became members, and in 1818 the Sunday school moved from Elliott's house to the church. He served as superintendent of the school until old age incapacitated him.

According to family tradition, Elliott regarded slavery as morally wrong, but because of the scarcity of free labor he purchased several enslaved persons with the understanding that he would free them after a term of service. County records document that Elliott emancipated only one, however, in 1798. Also according to tradition, many of his early Sunday school students were poor white boys bound to him as apprentices, but existing Accomack County apprenticeship indentures do not mention his name.

Elliott applied for a federal pension for Revolutionary War service under the act of 1832. His application was initially denied because he did not give specific dates of his tours of duty, but his family later received the pension. His surviving son and a grandson became Methodist ministers. The Sunday school he had founded met at Oak Grove United Methodist Church, successor to Burton's Chapel, near Melfa, into the twenty-first century. A state historical marker describes it as "possibly the nation's oldest continuous Sunday School." William Elliott died on 23 September 1836, probably at his Accomack County home, and was buried in the Burton family cemetery, near Quinby.

Sources Consulted:
Biography from family records including traditions in C. W. Baines, First American Sunday School, Organized by William Elliott, 1785; Burton–Oak Grove Sunday School, Accomac County, Virginia, Virginia State Sunday School Association Historical Bulletin No. 1 (1910); birth and death dates on gravestone transcribed in E. L. Mapp, "The Burton Burying Ground" (typescript dated 19 Jan. 1938), in Works Progress Administration, Virginia Historical Inventory, Library of Virginia; marriage and death dates in copy of family Bible records in Elliott's and widow's pension file, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.; Accomack Co. Deed Book, 9:189; Kirk Mariner, Revival's Children: A Religious History of Virginia's Eastern Shore (1979), 23–24, 55–58, 516; Scott David Arnold, comp., A Guidebook to Virginia's Historical Markers, 3d ed. (2007), 172 (quotation); Accomack Co. Wills, Etc. (1828–1846), 209–210.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by William B. Bynum.

How to cite this page:
William B. Bynum, "William Elliott (1754–1836)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2023 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Elliott_William, accessed [today's date]).

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