{{short description|African American/Native American entrepreneur and memoirist}} {{Infobox writer | name = Elleanor Eldridge | embed = | honorific_prefix = | honorific_suffix = | image = Portrait of Elleanor Eldridge from the frontispiece of the "Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge".jpg | image_size = | image_upright = | alt = | caption = Portrait of Elleanor Eldridge from the frontispiece of the ''Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge'' | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = March 1784/1785 | birth_place = Warwick, Rhode Island, U.S. | death_date = c. 1845 | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Entrepreneur, writer | language = English | residence = | nationality = American | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre = memoir | subject = | movement = | notableworks = ''Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge'' | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | signature_alt = | years_active = | module = | website = <!-- {{URL|example.org}} --> | portaldisp = <!-- "on", "yes", "true", etc; or omit --> }}

'''Elleanor Eldridge''' (March 1784/1785 – {{c.}} 1845) was an African American and Native American entrepreneur and memoirist from Rhode Island.{{sfn|Hopkins|1880|p=35}} She is best known for the ''Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge'' (16mo., Providence: B.T. Albro, 1838), which was co-authored with Frances Harriet Whipple Green McDougall.<ref name="aaregistry.org">{{cite web |title=Elleanor Eldridge, businesswoman amid oppression - African American Registry |url=https://aaregistry.org/story/elleanor-eldridge-businesswoman-amid-oppression/ |website=African American Registry |access-date= September 26, 2018}}</ref> Another edition was published in 1840, and still another in 1842. This volume of 128 pages was published for the purpose of enabling the subject of it to repurchase some property of which she had been perhaps legally, but at all events unfairly, deprived.{{sfn|Hopkins|1880|p=35}}

==Early years== Elleanor Eldridge was born in Warwick, Rhode Island, March 1784.{{sfn|Appleby|Chang|Goodwin|2015|p=112}}<ref name="unc.edu" />{{efn|The African American Registry records Eldridge's date of birth as March 26, 1785.<ref name="aaregistry.org" />}}

Her maternal grandmother, Mary Fuller, was a Native American who belonged to the small tribe or clan called the Fuller family, which was likely a portion of the Narragansett people. This group once held great possessions in large tracts of land, with a portion of which Mary Fuller purchased the freedom of her husband Thomas Prophet who, until his marriage, had been a enslaved.{{sfn|Eldridge|1843|p=23}} Her grandfather had been kidnapped at the mouth of the Congo River, on board a ship upon which he had been enticed for the purposes of trade. He was brought to Rhode Island, where he was sold as a slave.{{sfn|Hopkins|1880|p=35}} Mary Fuller, having witnessed the departing glories of her tribes, died in extreme old age, at the house of her son, Caleb Prophet, being 102 years old. She was buried at the Thomas Greene burying place in Warwick, in the year 1780. Her daughter Hannah married Robin Eldridge, the father of Elleanor.{{sfn|Eldridge|1843|p=23}}

==Career== thumb|right|Frontispiece and title page of the original memoirs.

Eldridge purchased a lot of land on Spring Street, in Providence, upon which she built a house, several times enlarging it until it became, to her, a valuable property, and was nearly paid for. It had cost about {{USD|2000}}; on it there was a loan of {{USD|240}}. On this loan, she paid an annual interest of ten per cent. Having an opportunity to purchase another estate adjoining her own, which materially improved her means of access to her house, she bought it for {{USD|2000}}, upon which she paid {{USD|500}} cash and gave a mortgage of {{USD|1500}} on her entire estate.{{sfn|Hopkins|1880|p=36}}

Being taken sick, she rented her property and went away to recover her strength. While gone, the gentleman from whom she borrowed the {{USD|240}} died, leaving his estate to his brother. This brother attached Elleanor's property, sold it by the sheriff, and he himself bought it for exactly the amount of the mortgage. Elleanor returned to find herself deprived in a moment of an estate which had cost about {{USD|4000}}.{{sfn|Hopkins|1880|p=36}}

She was not a woman who would submit quietly to such proceedings, and immediately set herself to work to obtain justice. General Ray Greene, Attorney General, assisted her, as did many of the best citizens of Providence, to whom she was well known. To assist in raising money, ''Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge'' was written, and several editions sold. A companion volume, entitled ''Elleanor's Second Book'', was published in 1847. These efforts were successful. Eldridge recovered her property after paying heavily for it, and lived to old age.{{sfn|Hopkins|1880|p=37}} She died about 1845.{{sfn|Appleby|Chang|Goodwin|2015|p=112}}<ref name="unc.edu">{{cite web |title=Summary of Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/eldridge/summary.html |website=docsouth.unc.edu |publisher=University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil |access-date= September 26, 2018}}</ref>

==Notes== {{notelist}}

== References == {{Reflist|30em}}

===Attribution=== * {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Eldridge|first=Elleanor|title=Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G71BAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA23|edition=Public domain|year=1843|publisher=B.T. Albro}} }} * {{Source-attribution| {{cite book|last=Hopkins|first=Stephen|title=A True Representation of the Plan Formed at Albany: In 1754, for Uniting All the British Northern Colonies, in Order to Their Common Safely and Defence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AqNKAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA35|edition=Public domain|year=1880|publisher=S. S. Rider}} }}

===Bibliography=== * {{cite book|last1=Appleby|first1=Joyce|last2=Chang|first2=Eileen|last3=Goodwin|first3=Neva|title=Encyclopedia of Women in American History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DPwvCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA112|date=17 July 2015|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-47162-2}}

==External links== * [https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/eldridge/eldridge.html "Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge: Electronic Edition."]

{{authority control}} A {{DEFAULTSORT:Eldridge, Elleanor}} Category:1780s births Category:1840s deaths Category:19th-century American women writers Category:19th-century African-American women writers Category:19th-century American writers Category:19th-century African-American writers Category:People from Warwick, Rhode Island Category:Writers from Rhode Island Category:19th-century American memoirists Category:American women memoirists Category:19th-century Native American writers Category:Memoirists from Rhode Island Category:Writers from Providence, Rhode Island Category:African-American memoirists Category:African-American women memoirists