Woman of the Century/Eliza Franklin Routt

ROUTT, Mrs. Eliza Franklin, social leader, born in Springfield, Ill., in 1842, of Kentucky ancestry. Her grandfather, Colonel William F Elkin, was one of the famous "Long Nine" that ELIZA FRANKLIN ROUTT. represented Sangamon county, Ill., in the legislative session of 1836-37. They averaged six feet in stature. Abraham Lincoln was one of those stalwarts, whose efforts that year secured the location of the capital for their county. Her father, Franklin Pickrell, also a Kentuckian, was of a family as noted for generous physical proportions as for their kindness of heart. The ancestral traits are marked in Mrs. Routt. Left an orphan in babyhood, Col. Elkin's home welcomed the grandchild. Orphanage doubtless accounts in some measure for the self-reliance and determination that have characterized her life. In a day when it was uncommon in the West, she secured an excellent education, which the family patrimony enabled her to supplement by travel and study abroad. When Colonel John L. Routt, the second assistant Postmaster-General, in 1874, wedded his bride in her uncle's home in Decatur, Ill., he took back to the national capital a talented, cultured woman, a desirable addition in every way to the society of Washington. In 1875 Colonel Routt went to Colorado as Territorial Governor under President Grant's appointment. In 1876 Colorado became a State and made him her first governor. In 1891 he was again the incumbent of the office. Their home has been in Denver for sixteen years. That Mrs. Routt has added strength and luster to her husband's administrations is recognized in the State, while culture, character, position and wealth have made her socially preeminent. The influence of herself and her associates has been a chief factor in developing the remarkably refined, almost unique, character of Denver's "best society" today. A devout member of the Christian Church, she has ever been generous in its support, generous in charity and always ready to recognize worth and " make friends with it " in any station of life. Still in the vigor of life, with a remarkably large and happy experience of the world 's honors and advantages, rest from undue effort in calm anticipation of the future, with a husband honored and exalted in the State he has done so much to mold and direct, with a daughter glowing in the inherited grace of the family, she now delights to keep up her studies and fellowship with the more serious women of the day, who recognize it as a duty to be intelligent and useful.