Samuel Eliot (1739-1820) was an American banker and businessman from the prominent Eliot family of Boston. He served as President of Massachusetts Bank, and was a highly successful Boston merchant, owning and operating what was then the precursor to 19th- and 20th-century style department stores. At the time of his death, he had amassed one of the largest fortunes in Boston.[2] He was an important early benefactor of Massachusetts General Hospital.[3]
He was descended from the Eliot family of South England.
He was born to Samuel Eliot, a Boston publisher and bookseller; and Elizabeth Marshall, from the West Indies.[4]
Eliot married Elizabeth Barrell of Boston, and married a second time in 1786 to Catherine Atkins, daughter of Dudley and Sarah (née Kent) Atkins of Newburyport, Massachusetts. The second marriage produced six children, one being Samuel Atkins Eliot.[5][6]