Erwin J. Eldridge was born on February 3, 1833, in Maryland to Griffith M. Eldridge and Sarah Cooper. His father was a farmer who owned $20,000 of real estate in 1850. The family lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the 1830s, and Eldridge was baptized in St. Paul’s Catholic Church on June 11, 1837. By 1840, the family was living in Cecil County, Maryland.

 

He graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1854 and served as a surgeon in the Crimean War. He returned to Cecil County by the late 1850s and worked as a doctor there. He married Emma L. Ronaldson in St. James Episcopal Church in Philadelphia on November 15, 1860, and they had at least two children: Griffith, born around 1862; and Archibald, born around 1867.

 

They apparently settled in Americus, Georgia, around 1860, and Eldridge supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. He enlisted in the Confederate army on July 6, 1861, and mustered in as a sergeant in Company A of the 11^th Georgia Light Artillery Battalion. Then, on August 1, 1861, he became a surgeon in the 16^th Georgia Infantry. The regiment took part in the Battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, and Cold Harbor. He remained in the army until at least October 1864.

 

Eldridge returned to Americus after the war and resumed his work as a doctor. By 1870, he owned $600 of real estate and $5,000 of personal property. His wife died around 1878, and he married Elizabeth Barlow on July 22, 1885. He helped organize a library in Americus, served on the local Board of Education, and served as a director of the Bank of Southwest Georgia. By the early 1900s, he was “one of the most prominent, influential and highly esteemed citizens” in town. He died of apoplexy in Americus on March 13, 1902.

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