Elisha S. Converse

Elisha Slade Converse (July 28, 1820 – June 5, 1904) was the first mayor of Malden, Massachusetts, a businessman, founder and president of Boston Rubber Shoe Company, a representative and senator in the state legislature and a philanthropist.

[1] The Convers families were yeoman farmers based in and around Navestock (Essex), with church records dating back to the early 1500s.

Some sources claim that the family name Convers(e) derives from an aristocratic line of “Conyers”, stretching back as far as Roger de Coignieres, purportedly one of the chieftains of William the Conqueror.

[2][3][4] More recent studies using DNA analysis suggest that, in reality, the Essex Converses were descendants of medieval Jews who were required to convert to Christianity.

[5] The Y-DNA of living males with direct paternal lineage to Deacon Edward Converse shows that they share the J2 haplogroup, rare in the UK and Europe, but commonly found in Jews and other men of middle-eastern origin.

Spending his childhood there, he acquired professional and basic educational skills and, at thirteen years of age, began to work on a farm.

The Converse Memorial Building, in which the Malden Public Library is located, was designed by Henry H. Richardson.

Converse donated 107.5 acres (43.5 ha) of land - to organize the public Pine Banks Park.