Elihu Yale

Elihu Yale, (April 5, 1649 - July 8, 1721), was the first benefactor of Yale University. His ancestry can be traced to a family of North Wales, and the name Yale is the English spelling of the Welsh place name, Iâl. He was a prominent governor of Madras, in British East India, amassed a fortune in his lifetime, and he was generous with the proceeds.

Life

Born in Boston, Yale moved to England with his family when he was four, and never returned to the United States.

For 20 years, Yale was part of the British East India Company, and he became the 2nd governor of a settlement at Madras (present-day city of Chennai) in 1687, after Streynsham Master. He was suspended from the post, however, in 1692 after arguments with his council and his superiors.

In 1718, Cotton Mather contacted Yale and asked for his help. Mather represented a small institution of learning that had been founded as the Collegiate School of Connecticut in 1701, and it needed money for a new building in New Haven. Yale sent Mather a carton of goods that the school subsequently sold, earning them 560 pounds sterling, which was a substantial sum in the early 1700s. In gratitude, officials named the new building Yale; eventually the entire institution became Yale College.

Death and legacy

Yale died on July 8, 1721 and is buried in the churchyard of Wrexham, North Wales. His tomb is inscribed with these lines:

Born in America, in Europe bred

In Africa travell'd and in Asia wed

Where long he liv'd and thriv'd; In London dead

Much good, some ill, he did; so hope all's even

And that his soul thro' mercy's gone to Heaven

You that survive and read this tale, take care

For this most certain exit to prepare

Where blest in peace, the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in silent dust.

Elihu later became the name of a "senior society" founded in 1903 at Yale.

Alexandra Robbins, in her article for Atlantic Monthly about Skull and Bones, alleges that the gravestone of Elihu Yale was stolen years ago from its proper setting in Wrexham, and is displayed in a glass case, in a room with purple walls, which belongs to a building called the Tomb of the Skull and Bones at Yale University.

Other references to the name

Elihu Yale is also the name of the Atlanta Police Chief in Tom Wolfe's novel A Man in Full. In the novel Elihu Yale is understood to be a black man, a fact that could possibly be interpreted as more of Tom Wolfe's commentary on class division in the United States. Wolfe himself earned a PhD. in American Studies from Yale.