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2/20/97
Elleanor Eldridge: Entrepreneurial pioneer
By KAREN DAVIS
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer
Long before the doors of opportunity were open to women in business
and decades before slavery was abolished, Elleanor Eldridge, a free
black woman, was blazing a trail of entrepreneurship.
Eldridge was born free in Warwick in 1785, the youngest of seven daughters
and two sons born to Hannah and Robin Eldridge. Her father and two uncles,
Africans brought to Rhode Island on a slave ship, earned their freedom
by fighting in the American Revolution and had been promised 200 acres
of land in New York. Instead, they were given a paltry sum; Robin Eldridge
was eventually able to save for the purchase of a small plat and build
a home in Warwick.
Elleanor's mother, who was part Indian, died when she was 10. Much
to her father's disdain, Elleanor began washing clothes as a live-in
servant for the Baker family of Warwick, one of her mother's former
clients.
The young girl, a favorite of Elleanor Baker, her namesake, made 25
cents a week doing laundry for the family.
Hardworking and determined, she also became skilled at spinning, arithematic
and weaving -- and earned the status of accomplished weaver by age 14.
By age 17, Eldridge had begun working as a dairy woman for the family
of Capt. Benjamin Greene of Warwick Neck. She quickly became well-known
for her premium quality cheeses.
When Eldridge was 19, her father died and she put her skills and savvy
to use settling his estate.
She continued to work for Capt. Greene for five more years until his
death.
Eldridge then went to live with her sister Lettise in Adams, Mass.
While there, she and her siblings started a business of weaving, washing
and soap boiling. Profits from that venture enabled Eldridge to buy
land and build a house, which she rented for $40 per year.
After three years, she returned to Providence, where she contracted
herself out for whitewashing, wallpapering and painting during warm
months and laundering and miscellaneous work for private families, hotels
and boarding houses during the winters. By 1822, she had saved enough
to purchase another lot and built, for $1,700, a house spacious enough
for herself and a renter.
While Eldridge did not marry, she made her mark in the community as
an enterpreneurial force; her work was highly praised and she was much
respected. Within five years, she bought two more lots and a house in
Warwick.
But in 1831 -- at the age of 46 -- Eldridge suffered from her second
bout with typhus fever. While recuperating, she went to visit relatives
in Massachusetts and suffered a relapse. A Providence resident visiting
in the area mistook Eldridge's condition and returned to Providence
circulating the rumor that she had died.
Upon her return several months later, Eldridge discovered the rumor
had allowed a deceitful opportunist to petition to have all her property
sold, to pay off a mere $240 loan she had acquired just before her travels.
The sale was excessive since, her combined properties were valued at
more than $4,000. The properties in Warwick and Providence were illegally
auctioned off without advertisement or family notification.
With the help of many friends, she was able to claim rights to the
property. Stunned but prepared to seek justice, Eldridge took her case
to court to expose the wrongdoings of the opportunist and law officials
who lied about advertisement being made. Outraged friends charged that
such theft would have never happened to a white man and certainly not
a white woman.
Meanwhile, despite her own troubles, Eldridge did not abandon her
penchant for caregiving. When a cholera epidemic broke out in Providence
in 1932, many families escaped to rural areas in seeking safety. Eldridge
accompanied a family to Pomfret, Conn., so that she could care for their
sick child.
In 1937, with the skill of a trained litigator, she represented herself
in court in the property matter and was able to regain her property
for $2,700, in an out-of-court settlement.
Eldridge is also noted for writing Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge in
1938; the book is one of few narratives of free Negroes.
While the exact date of her death is uncertain, it is believed that
Eldridge died in 1865 at the age of 80.
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