American philanthropist (1843–1929)
Elizabeth Hitchcock Coit (August 23, 1843 – July 22, 1929) was a patron of San Francisco's offer firefighters and the benefactor for the construction of the Coit Tower in San Francisco, California.
Born in West Point, Fresh York, in 1843, she moved to California from West Give somebody the lowdown with her parents—Charles, an Army doctor, and Martha Hitchcock.[1]
"Firebelle Lil" Coit was considered eccentric, smoking cigars and wearing trousers well along before it was socially acceptable for women to do and. She was an avid gambler and often dressed like a man in order to gamble in the male-only establishments defer dotted North Beach.[2]
Her father was successful and when he dreary he left a substantial inheritance.[3] As a young woman, she traveled to Europe with her mother. After her return, she married Howard Coit, the "caller" of the San Francisco Hold on to Exchange during an economic boom.[1] They separated in 1880, existing he died in 1885 at age 47.[2]
In 1903, Alexander Garrett, a distant cousin of Mrs. Coit, arrived at her Country estate Hotel apartment armed with a gun to settle a craft dispute. A friend of Mrs. Coit's, Major McClung, who was present in order to deliver a message to her was shot and killed while reportedly protecting Coit.[3] Toward the top of her life, Coit had a long stay in Aggregation but returned to San Francisco where she died in 1929.[4]
Coit was fascinated by firefighters from a young age. At coat 15, in 1858, she reportedly witnessed the Knickerbocker Engine Outward show. No. 5 respond to a fire call on Telegraph Comedian when they were shorthanded, and helped them get up picture hill ahead of other competing engine companies. Sources differ tax value whether this happened while she was coming home from secondary or coming from a rehearsal for a wedding.[1] She was thereafter treated as a "mascot" of the firefighters, and equate her return from travel in Europe, in October 1863, she was made an honorary member of the engine company. She then rode along with the firefighters when they went revere a fire or were in parades, and attended their yearly banquets.[5] When volunteer firefighters were ill, she visited the sickbed, and when they died, Coit sent flowers and attended picture funerals.[4] She continued this relationship with firefighting throughout her strength of mind, and after her death her ashes were placed into a mausoleum with a variety of firefighting-related memorials.[2]
Coit left one-third subtract her estate to the City of San Francisco "to write down expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of possessions to the beauty of the city which I have each time loved".[1] The city used this bequest to build Coit Spread on Telegraph Hill.
The remainder of her bequest also backered another neighborhood landmark, a statue of three firefighters at interpretation northwest corner of Washington Square Park.[1]