History of Bucks
County, Pa Volume 3 by William H. Davis
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JOSIAH ERNEST SCOTT, M.D. JOSIAH ERNEST SCOTT, M.D., of New Hope, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, is a native of Washington county, Pennsylvania, and belongs to a family that have been prominent in the professional, official and social walks of life for many generations. Hugh SCOTT, the founder of the family in America, was of Scottish ancestry and was born in the north of Ireland, from whence he emigrated to Pennsylvania and settled in Chester county about the year 1670. He was a Presbyterian, a Scotch-Irish Covenanter of the John Knox type, who loved liberty, civil and religious, and feared nothing but God. Abraham SCOTT, son of Hugh was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, about the year 1677, and died in 1760. He was the father of seven children, all of whom were among the earliest settlers on the frontiers in Westmoreland and Washington counties, forming the vanguard of that army of sturdy Scotch-Irish who carried civilization and Christianity into the wilderness, establishing first the church, second the school, and taking an active part in the organization of a local self-government. The children of Abraham SCOTT were as follows: 1. Ann, born 1699, married Arthur PATTERSON. 2. Thomas, born 1705, died 1796, was a justice of Westmoreland county, 1774, and a member of supreme executive council in 1777. On the organization of Washington county, out of Westmoreland, in 1781, was its first prothonotary, and became a judge of the court of common pleas in 1786. 3. Rebecca, born December 17, 1707, became the second wife of James AGNEW, a Scotch-Irish emigrant, and the great-great-grandmother of the famous Dr. David Hayes AGNEW. 4. Alexander, settled in Lancaster county in 1738, was a captain in the provincial service there in 1756, and is said to have removed later to Virginia. 5. Grace, of whom no authentic history has been preserved. 6. Hugh SCOTT, born 1726, married Janet AGNEW, daughter of James AGNEW, before mentioned, by a former wife, and lived for a time near Gettysburg, removing later to what became Pigeon Creek, Washington county, where he took up large tracts of land. Died there October 11, 1819, aged ninety-three years. 7. Josiah SCOTT, youngest son of Abraham, born 1734, died February 20, 1819 at the age of eighty-four years. He learned the trade of a blacksmith, and settled about 1760 at Peach Bottom, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, removing thence in 1773 to that part of Westmoreland county included in the formation of Washington county in 1781, where he took up 800 acres of land near the present site of Washington, then known as Catfish. He married in Lancaster county Violet FISHER, by whom he had six children, as follow: Sarah, who died young; Alexander, who married Rachel MCDOWELL and became a prominent man in Washington county; Rev. Abraham, a distinguished Presbyterian divine, who married Rebecca MCDOWELL; Mary, who married William COTTON, of a prominent Washington county family; Elizabeth, who married Robert STEVENSON; James; and Jane, who married Hugh WORKMAN. Josiah SCOTT married (second) Jane GORDON, born 1749, died December 26, 1831, and they were the parents of three sons- Hugh, Robert and Samuel. Many of the descendants of Josiah SCOTT have distinguished themselves in professional, civil and official positions. One of them was a judge of the supreme court of Ohio; many of them have been eminent jurists and lawyers; several have achieved distinction as physicians; while a large number have been eminent divines in the Presbyterian church. General Samuel SCOTT, youngest son of Josiah and Jane (GORDON) SCOTT, born near Washington, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1785, was the grandfather of Dr. Josiah Ernest SCOTT, the subject of this sketch. Born and reared in a newly settled community, where educational facilities were very limited, he was practically a self –educated man, what literary knowledge he possessed being gathered in the midst of a life of strenuous activity. He was from early manhood a member of the local militia of Washington county, and rose through successive grades of official position to the rank of brigadier-general. At the outbreak of the second war with the mother country he offered the services of his battalion in defense of his country, but, though it was accepted, his command was held in reserve, and the war ended without it having been called into active service. He died October 16, 1819, in his thirty-fifth year. The Washington Reporter, under date of October 25, 1819, contains an obituary notice of him of which the following is an abstract; “Brigadier-General Samuel SCOTT died on the 16th instant, beloved and esteemed by all who knew him. His private virtues secured the warm friendship of his associates, and the friends who wept around his tomb will find consolation in the remembrance of a life which was busy in cultivating, through the relations of piety, friendships for the advancement of civil liberty and national prosperity. The loss of a man inflexible in virtue and unappalled by misfortune is a public one.” General SCOTT married in 1809 Mary Ann WYLIE, daughter of William and Ellen (NOBLE) WYLIE, who lived in his immediate neighborhood, and they were the parents of four children, as follows: William WYLIE, who lived for a time in Newark, Ohio, and later removed to Europe, where he died; Josiah Noble, see forward; Jane, who married a Mr. LEE; and Samuel GODON, of Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. Josiah Noble SCOTT, second son of General Samuel and Mary Ann (WYLIE) SCOTT, born four miles north of Washington, Pennsylvania, June 26, 1813, was the father of the subject of this sketch. He was but six years of age at the death of his father, and his mother soon after married John D. LINDLEY, of Lindley’s Mills, on Ten-Mile-Run, near the village of Prosperity, where the children of her first husband were reared. On March 8, 1837, Josiah Noble SCOTT married Rachel VANCE, daughter of William and Rachel (PATTERSON) VANCE, of Cross Creek township, Washington county, Pennsylvania, and settled in that township, where they reared a family of eight children. Mr. and Mrs. SCOTT were both members of Cross Creek Presbyterian church, and both lie buried in the graveyard of that church. Their eight children were: Hannah Loretta, married Isaac M. LAWTON, who died in 1878, and she later became matron of the boys’ boarding school at Saltsburg, Pennsylvania; Mary Ann, wife of Captain J. B. HAYS, of South Burgettstown, Pennsylvania; Samuel Clark, who served in the Twenty-second Pennsylvania Cavalry during the civil war, now a resident of Lyon county, Kansas; Orphalina, wife of James FYFE, of Kansas; Ella, wife of J. Q. LAW, of Harrison county, Ohio; William VANCE, of the same place; Melissa Jane, wife of Samuel S. CAMPBELL; and Josiah Ernest, the subject of this sketch. Rachel (VANCE) SCOTT, the mother of Dr. SCOTT, was born December 28, 1816, a daughter of William and Rachel (PATTERSON) VANCE, and was descended in both paternal and maternal lines from early Scotch-Irish settlers on the frontier of Pennsylvania. Her father, William VANCE, was born on the old VANCE homestead in Washington county, Pennsylvania, November 30, 1775, and was a son of Joseph VANCE, and a grandson of William VANCE, who was a member of the first committee of observation for Washington county under the committee of safety for that section in 1775. His first wife, Rachel PATTERSON, was born June 3, 1781, and died January 9, 1817; and his second wife was Hannah PATTERSON, her sister, born 1786, died 1878. James PATTERSON, the maternal great-grandfather of Rachel (VANCE) SCOTT, was born in county Antrim, Ireland, of Scotch parents, in 1708, and emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1728. Landing in New York, he made his way to Little Britain township, Lancaster county, where he took up land, a part of which is still in possession of his descendants. After preparing a home in the wilderness he returned to New York in 1732, and married the wife of his choice, whom he had met on his arrival in America, and brought her to his Lancaster county farm, where they reared a family of eleven children, several of whom became pioneers, in York, Westmoreland, Washington and other frontier counties, as well as in Kentucky and Ohio. William PATTERSON, eldest son of James the founder, born March 14, 1733, died June 29, 1818, was the grandfather of Rachel (VANCE) SCOTT. He was twice married, his first wife being Rosanna SCOTT, of Cecil county, Maryland, by whom he had three sons- Samuel, Thomas and James. She died April 5, 1769, and he married, August 10, 1770, Elizabeth BROWN, who died January 30, 1826. She was the mother of seven children; Nathaniel; Rachel, born June 3, 1781, married William VANCE, December 24, 1799, and died January 9, 1817; Elizabeth; Josiah; Hannah, born 1786, married June 12, 1818, William VANCE, died in 1878; Nathan, and Elinor. William PATTERSON was one of the earliest settlers at Cross Creek, Washington County, Pennsylvania, and a prominent man in that community. William VANCE was a farmer in Cross Creek township, and reared a family of fourteen children, nine by the first wife and five by the second, Rachel the mother of Dr. SCOTT, being the youngest child of the first marriage. Josiah Ernest SCOTT was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, September 16, 1856, and is a worthy descendant of his Scotch-Irish forbears. He early manifested a taste for study and reading, and with the sturdy persistency of his ancestors set about acquiring an education that would qualify him to fill the position he had chosen for himself in professional life. Mainly by his own efforts he worked his was through normal and other schools into and through the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, during the years 1878-1881, representing his literary society on various occasions as essayist and orator. On April 26, 1882, he married Elizabeth T. LAIZURE, of Cadiz, Ohio, in whom he found an efficient aid and spur in realizing his cherished ambition for qualifying himself for the profession of a physician. Returning to his native county of Washington, he devoted his summer months to agricultural pursuits and the winter to study and teaching, for five years. His wife was a fitting helpmeet (sic) for the ambitious student. In addition to her household duties she found time to compete for prizes offered by various journals for essays on various subjects, and for a time had charge of the woman’s department of the National Stockman, published at Pittsburg. In 1887 Mr. and Mrs. SCOTT removed to Philadelphia, and he entered the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with the highest honors as an M.D. on May 1, 1890. He at once located in New Hope, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, where he has since practiced his chosen profession with marked success, extending his practice into the adjoining parts of the county and across the river into the state of New Jersey. Ha has from time to time taken post-graduate courses in various specialties in the line of his profession, and is a member of the D. Hayes AGNEW Surgical Society of Philadelphia, and enjoyed the personal friendship of the eminent Dr. AGNEW, for whom it is named, though, during the lifetime of Dr. Agnew, neither of them were aware of their connection by ties of blood through their common descent from Abraham and Hugh SCOTT. Dr. SCOTT is also a member of the Bucks County Medical Society, the Medical Society of Pennsylvania, and the American Medical Association. In politics he believes thoroughly in the principles of the Republican party. He has always taken a deep interest in the affairs of the town in which he lives, and has served as chief burgess for three years, and a like term as a member of the local school board. He is an ardent member of the Presbyterian church, the church of his fathers, and has been for many years the superintendent of the Sabbath school connected with that church at New Hope. He and his estimable wife take an active part in philanthropic and church work in that vicinity, as well as in the social, literary and educational institutions, of the community; both are members of the Solebury Farmers’ Club. Their only child, Gail Winters SCOTT, born in Philadelphia, July 2, 1889, was a graduate of New Hope High School in 1905. Test taken from page 512 to 514 of: Davis, William W. H., A.M., History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania [New York-Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1905] Volume III Transcribed July 2005 by Joan Lollis as part of the Bucks Co., Pa., Early Family Project, www.rootsweb.com/~pabucks/bucksindex.html Published August 2005 on the Bucks County, Pa., USGenWeb pages at www.rootsweb.com/~pabucks/ |
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Page was last edited:
11/15/2008