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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



3'ears have been conservators of health in 

 the middle-eastern section of the coun'.\-. 

 useful citizens, able and progressive prac- 

 titioners. Dr. Smith is and has been iden- 

 tified with the interests of the public schools 

 and health board of his native place, and 

 is affiliated with various local, state and 

 national medical societies. 



JOSIAH ERNEST SCOTT, M. D., of 

 New Hope, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, is 

 a native of Washington county, Pennsyl- 

 vania, and belongs to a family that have 

 been prominent in the professional, official 

 and social walks of life for many genera- 

 tions. 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 civiliza- 

 tion 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: I. 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 organi- 

 zation of Washington county, out of West- 

 moreland, 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, set- 

 tled 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 men- 

 tioned, 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 Abra- 

 ham, 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 follows : Sarah, who died 

 young ; Alexander, who married Rachel 

 McDowell and became a prominent man in 

 Washington county ; Rev. Abraham, a dis- 

 tinguished Presbyterian divine, who married 

 Rebecca McDowell ; Mary, who married 

 William Cotton, of a prominent Washing- 

 ton county family ; Elizabeth, who mar- 

 ried 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 gath- 

 ered 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 Wash- 

 ington 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 i6th in.stant, beloved and esteemed by 

 all who knew him. His private virtues se- 

 cured the warm friendship of his asso- 

 ciates, and the friends who wept around 

 his tomb will find consolation in the remem- 

 brance of a life which was busy in culti- 

 vating, through the relations of piety, 

 friendships for the advancement of civil 

 liberty and national prosperity. The loss 

 of a man inflexible in virtue and unap- 

 palled by misfortune is a public one." Gen- 

 eral Scott married in 1809 Mary Ann Wylie, 

 daughter of William and Ellen (Noble) 

 Wylie, who lived in his immediate neigh- 

 borhood, and they were tlie parents of 

 four children, as follows: William Wylie, 

 who lived for a time in Newark, Ohio,. 



