D. D Cornelius Elias, an American clergyman, born at Somers, Westchester co., N. Y., July 31, 1794, died in Hartford, Conn., Feb. 12, 1832. He graduated at Yale college in 1813, studied theology there under Dr. Dwight, and afterward at Litchfield under Lyman Beecher, was licensed to preach in 1816, and was immediately afterward appointed an agent of the American board of commissioners for foreign missions. Having been ordained as an evangelist in 1817, he set out on a mission to the south to raise funds and to establish missions among the Indians. "While on his way to the Chickasaw nation he met a band of Cherokees who had with them an Osage girl of five years, whose mother they had killed and scalped. He redeemed the child, provided for her care and education, and wrote a small book,."The Little Osage Girl," which was adopted as a Sunday school book, and had much influence in promoting the cause of Indian missions. In 1819, after declining several other invitations, he was installed as colleague of Dr. Worcester over the Tabernacle church at Salem, Mass., it being stipulated that Dr. Worcester might devote three fourths and Cornelius one fourth of their time to the cause of missions.

Dr. Worcester died in 1821, and Mr. Cornelius remained as pastor in Salem till 1826, when he accepted the appointment of secretary of the American education society. In 1829 he received the degree of D. D. from Dartmouth college, and was chosen professor of divinity in that institution. He declined this appointment, and also that of secretary of the American Bible society. Jeremiah Evarts, secretary of the board of commissioners for foreign missions, having died, Dr. Cornelius, in January, 1832, accepted the appointment to that position, and entered upon its duties. But in the following month, while on his way from Boston to New York, he was attacked with a brain fever at Hartford, where he died. Besides the "Little Osage Girl," he published many pamphlets and sermons, but his reputation rests mainly upon his successful efforts in behalf of missions and theological education. A memoir of Cornelius, by B. B. Edwards, was published in 1833.