Eliot enshrined

Joe Edwards (l), and Chancellor Mark Wrighton
Photo by Mary Butkus

Joe Edwards (left), owner of Blueberry Hill and The Pageant and proprietor of the St. Louis Walk of Fame, presents Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton with a replica of William Greenleaf Eliot’s star in a ceremony May 11 in the University City Loop. Eliot — a co-founder of Washington University — was one of five Walk of Fame inductees this year. The grandfather of poet T.S. Eliot, W.G. Eliot came to St. Louis as a missionary in 1834 and was the first Unitarian minister west of the Mississippi River. In 1853, co-founder Wayman Crow secured a charter for a proposed college named Eliot Seminary. In 1854 — the year that the name of the school changed to Washington Institute of St. Louis — Eliot became chairman of the Board of Trustees, and in 1870 he became chancellor. He held both positions until his death in 1887.