ELLIOTT, Capt. Robert Thomas (1795-1841), active in Detroit, Mich. as an architect and jurist in the Wayne County District Court Judicial system. He was one of the first professional architects to live and work in Detroit in the early 19th C., and he was credited with one major commission in Ontario, that for Our Lady of Assumption Roman Catholic Church in the town of Sandwich, now part of Windsor, designed in 1840 or before, and built in 1842-45 after his untimely death on 10 September 1841.
Born in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland on 20 December 1795, he emigrated to the United States in 1819 and worked as draftsman with the Royal Engineers in Quebec City, overseeing works on the Citadel fortress complex. In 1827 he moved to Rochester, N.Y. and practised as an architect there until 1834, then relocated to Detroit where he continued his professional activity. In 1840 he was elected as an Associate Judge in Wayne County Judicial District, but he continued to work as an architect up until the time of his death in September 1841 when he was accidentally killed in a construction accident while overseeing his design of the first St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Detroit (completed 1843; demol. 1882). He was one of the promoters and purchasers of lands for Mount Elliott Cemetery in Detroit in 1840, and he was the first recorded internment there in 1841. The cemetery was later renamed in his honour (obituary Democratic Free Press [Detroit], 29 Sept. 1841, p. 1, col. 6; biog. in H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 196; biog. in W. Hawkins Ferry, The Buildings of Detroit, 1968, 46)
ROCHESTER, N.Y., St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, North Plymouth Avenue at Platt Street, 1827; replaced in 1835 by a larger church on the same site (W. Hawkins Ferry, 1968, 46, list of works)
DETROIT, MICH., St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church, Woodward Avenue, major additions and remodeling of existing church, in the Gothic style, 1836 (W. Hawkins Ferry, The Buildings of Detroit, 1968, 46, and plate 53, illus.)
DETROIT, MICH., mansion for John A. Welles, c. 1838 (W. Hawkins Ferry, 1968, 46, list of works)
DETROIT, MICH., St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Monroe Street at St. Antoine Street, 1841-43; demol. 1883 and replaced by current St. Mary's Church in 1884-85 designed by Peter Dederichs (inf. Mount Elliott Cemetery: A History, p. 36 [online] .
SANDWICH, ONT., Our Lady of Assumption Roman Catholic Church, Huron Church Road at University Avenue, designed in 1840 or earlier; built 1842-45; altered in 1874 with addition of the tower and spire, and addition of sanctuary by Samuel M. Goddard; church restored in 2014-19 (George F. Macdonald, “Forgotten Facts about Assumption Parish, Sandwich, Ontario” in The Canadian Catholic Historical Association Report, 1951, 44; M. MacRae & A Adamson, Hallowed Walls, 1975, 131-32, illus.; Andrew Foot, Windsor Then & Now, 2021, 58-9, illus.)