According to Genealogy of the Descendants of John Eliot,666 “The family of John Eliot, ‘Apostle to the Indians,’ has been traced back to Oct. 30, 1598, when his father, Bennett, and his mother Letteye (Aggar) [Anderson157 spells her name Lettice Agar or Aggar] were married, as it is recorded in the Parish Register of the Church of St. John the Baptist, Widford, County of Hertford, England. The births or baptisms of their children indicate that they removed from Widford to Nazeing, County of Essex, between 1606 and 1610. Bennett was buried at Nazeing, Nov. 21, 1621; she, March 16, 1620. Both in graves now unmarked and unknown. [A list of their children follows.]

“So far as is known, the brothers of John Eliot, Phillip and Jacob, have not left descendants in the male line. All of Bennett Eliot’s children left ‘The Old Home’ for the new world.

“As the first years of their son, John, ‘were seasoned with the fear of God, the word and prayer’; and as the will of Bennett Eliot shows evidently a large landed estate, besides other possessions, the family doubtless enjoyed an excellent position.”

Pages 9-12 in the Eliot genealogy transcribe Bennett Eliot’s will, and a photograph of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Widford faces p. 10. (In the text of the will his name is spelled Bennett, but it is signed Benedict.) A facsimile of Bennett Eliot’s marriage record also appears in this volume on p. 213.

Bennett Eliot and his wife are ancestors of the jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes.192