Photographic portrait of a young Thomas Lamb Eliot.
he impetus for creating Reed College came from the efforts of Thomas Lamb Eliot, a Unitarian minister and civic leader in Portland, Oregon. The city’s most eminent citizen, Eliot suggested in 1887 to two of his wealthy parishioners, Simeon and Amanda Reed, that they use their riches for the betterment of Portland by establishing a Reed Institute of lectures and the arts.
Subsequently, when Simeon Gannett Reed died in 1895, his will designated that a portion of his estate go toward furthering the cultural advancement of Portland.
Reed died in retirement in Pasadena, California, leaving his fortune to his wife, Amanda Wood Reed. They had no children. Simeon had made his fortune in transportation, primarily in the Oregon Steam Navigation Company and the Willamette Transportation and Locks Company, though he had owned several mines, a stud farm, and other farming tracts. Though Eliot had earlier suggested that they endow a Reed Institute, Simeon’s will only suggested that his wife use some of the money for a “suitable purpose…which shall be of permanent value and contribute to the beauty of the city and to the intelligence, prosperity and happiness of the inhabitants.”
Reed in 1895 and before
