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Elial T. Foote

American physician, politician, jurist and historian

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ116005015
Source-derived summary

Elial Todd Foote (May 1, 1796 – November 17, 1877) was an American medical doctor, politician, jurist and historian. He was the judge of Chautauqua County, New York, from 1824 to 1843. Previously, he had three terms in the New York State Assembly (1819–1820, 1826–1827).

Biography

Early life and career

Foote was born in Gill, Massachusetts, as the eldest of the 11 children of Samuel Foote (1770–1848) and Sybil Doolittle Foote (1777–1832). In 1798, his family moved to Sherburne, New York. Here, his father purchased land and operated a tavern. Foote attended schools there and at Oxford Academy.

Foote studied medicine under Dr. Guthrie and attended medical lectures in New York City. In 1815, he was licensed as a doctor by the Chenango County Medical Society.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Elial T. Foote” is american physician, politician, jurist and historian. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Elial, Foote and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1796, 1877, 1824, 1843—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1796-05-01. For this dossier, Elial, Foote and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american physician, politician, jurist and historian” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q116005015. VIAF identifies the subject as 73713700. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1796, 1877, 1824 and 1843.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Elial T. Foote”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Elial T. Foote primary sources, Elial T. Foote archive and Elial research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Elial T. Foote”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Elial T. Foote” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.