Formerly named Ledbury Key after a ship of that name was driven ashore here in 1760. Charles M. Brookfield, who purchased 20 acres of the key during the Great Depression for $160.00 stated that the key was renamed for an early surveyor, Mr. Elliott. If this is so, he was an early surveyor indeed, for the chart of William DeBrahm (1772) shows Eliot Island. An 1872 survey map drawn by M.A. Williams shows Elliott's Key. According to an article in the 1975 issue of Tequesta, DeBrahm named Elliott Key for Gilbert Elliot, who was Lord of the Treasury at the time.