Dr. Albert J. Elliott In The Role Of Gay Deceiver

DR. ALBERT J. ELLIOT IN THE ROLE OF GAY DECEIVER

California Career of a Former Physician of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti

Sued for Breach of Promise by Girl Whom He Passed Off as His Wife--Pretended in Ypsilanti to Inherit Great Wealth

Apparently Dr. A. J. Elliott is a gay deceiver. Many will remember his Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti career and to them the account below of how he deceived a California girl under promise of marriage, taken from the San Francisco paper, may not come wholly in the nature of a surprise.

Dr. Elliott carne to Ann Arbor from Canada in 1891. In 1893 he married Miss Martha Speachley, who was born and brought up two miles east of Ann Arbor on the Geddes road and is a very estimable young woman and whose father is a prosperous farmer. They lived together until 1900. In 1897 he graduated from the homeopathic hospital. He then went to Ypsilanti, where he built up a good practice. He succeeded, however, in getting badly in debt and before leaving told some very fanciful stories. One of them that got into print was to the effect that an uncle had died in Montreal, leaving him $250,000. He vas going in a few days after the story was told to Montreal to look after his newly acquired property, then he proposed to make a short visit with friends in California, after which he proposed to sail for Europe to spend a year or two in professional study at Belgian universities. He is still in California, the European visit being apparently deferred. In fact. Elliott is said to have acknowledged that the story did not rest on fact and was told simply to permit him to get out of Ypsilanti peaceably. His description of his work in Ann Arbor, given at the time he gave the $250,000 story to the reporters, is worth repeating:

"All the money his father could spare for his education was expended in securing an A. B. at Gill University, Canada, and the degree of A. M. at Harvard University, so that when he came to Ann Arbor in 1892 he had but $4.20 in his pockets, although there was a steadfast determination in his heart to take the allopathic and homeopathic medical courses without further delay. Enough money to pay his tuition was raised in a few days by securing a class of young men who had been "conned" in Latin and Greek and desired tutoring; and the major portion of his expenses for the year was soon provided by waiting on table and taking care of a furnace, thus supplying board and room free of charge.

"For five years he carried the double burden of full college work and a round of arduous duties to keep the ever-insistent wolf from the door. Tutoring, keeping books, selling goods on subscription by house to house canvass, doing work in analysis for practicing physicians during the latter part of his medical course, and any other form of honorable employment which would serve to bring in a dollar or two was eagerly secured."

Dr. Elliott was never professor of pathology here as is said in the newspaper article given below. That he is as much a romancer now as when he left Ypsilanti is not beyond the bounds of probability.

At any rate many people in both Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor who knew Dr. Elliott will be interested in the following article from the San Francisco Chronicle:

When Dr. Albert J. Elliott of this city, formerly professor of pathology of the Unlversity of Michigan, said last Friday evening that he had never promised to marry Miss Elizabeth Hunt, the plaintiff in the breach of promise suit against him, his memory, according to the plaintiff's story, must have slipped a cog. The young lady has a tranch of telltale letters, written on the doctor's best letter head, and all addressed to suit "Mrs. A. J. Elliott."

Miss Hunt filed her suit on Friday last and asked for $15,000 damages. She alleges that the doctor promised to marry her as soon as he secured a divorce from his wife in Michigan, and that instead of keeping faith he deserted her four weeks ago, after having lived together as husband and wife for eleven months.

In an interview the doctor admitted that he and Miss Hunt had been very fond of each other, but said specifically: "Please say for me that I never did promise to marry her; that I won't marry her and that I won't pay anything to soothe her damaged affections."

Against this assertion is the following letter, written by Dr. Elliott to Miss Hunt, and now in the hands of her attorney, Joseph Rothschild:

My loving Elizabeth: Your little boy is very, very lonesome tonight--I am sure if he could only see you he would be happy. I wonder how much you really love me, Elizabeth? You I know that I love you more than any living soul and am patiently waiting for that time to come when I shall be free to claim you as my own true and loving wife. I am sure, Elizabeth, that when you are mine that you shall never have occasion to worry or feel jealous of me, for in you I shall find all my heart's desire. As I told you this A. M., from now on, dearest one, I wish you to feel that you truly will be mine, and from this time forward let all your actions tend toward that end. I assure you that I shall ever do all in my power to make your life happy, for to me you are the dearest and sweetest girl in all this world; my very soul is wrapped up in you. To me you are a beautiful woman in character and in all that pertains to true womanhood. Before you came into my life it was indeed sad, but you have brought the sunshine and flowers and I pray that they may ever shine and blossom for both of us.

It is time for my dlnner, so I'll bid you adieu for the present, while in mind and in heart you are never absent. With fondest love, I am ever your own dearest boy,

          ALBERT.

When seen yesterday, Miss Hunt expressed the greatest indignatlon at the doctor's statements. She showed a golden band upon the third finger of her left hand, on the inside of which are engraved, "E. H. E.", prepared, she said, in anticipation of the wedding trip to Reno that was never taken. Among other things Miss Hunt said:

"For the eleven months during which Dr. Elliott and I lived together at the New Western Hotel, he introduced me to his friends as his wife, and I presented him to my friends as my husband. Under promise of marriage and because hetold my aunt of our relations, I lived as his wife because I believed in him and his honesty of purpose. It is true that we quarreled because I was jealous, but I had cause to be. That, however, was some time before Dr. Elliott left me. He gave no excuse when he deserted me and he tried to get the ring which was to have been used at the time of our wedding.

"When Dr. Elliott got his divorce in August last, he said that he did not want to leave his practice to go to Reno, but that we would go on the first holiday. One of these occasions passed after another and he kept putting off the trip, but I believed him when he said that he was busy and that his work would suffer if he left. I gave him the money to pay his office rent when we first lived together and money for the first installment on his office furniture. I tried to do my part. Now he is making a good living. He claimed to be a cousin of Professor Eliot of Harvard, but said that one part of the family spelled the name as he did.

"This suit is only the beginning of what I intend to do in a legal way. There are other and more serious things to follow. I never thought that this could happen, but Dr. Elliott has seen fit to deny his promise to me and I will leave no stone unturned to make good what I have said."