bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church
Scott was born near Cantwell"s Bridge, now Odessa, Delaware. His parents were Methodists, his father a class-leader and Local preacher who entered the Itinerant Ministry of the Philadelphia Annual Conference of the Mechanical Engineering Church in 1803.
Birth, Family and Early He died the following year. He labored on a farm until his sixteenth year, when he began a mechanical occupation. He was converted to Christ in 1822 and united with the Church.
After great hesitation, and under a thorough conviction of duty, he accepted a License to Preach in 1825.
The following year he was received into the Philadelphia Conference. Scott was appointed, successively, to Talbot, Dover, Saint George"s Charge, Philadelphia, and West Chester.
In 1832, on account of impaired health, he received the supernumerary relation. The following year he was able to resume his work.
In 1834, he was unexpectedly appointed Presiding Elder of the Delaware District.
Scott continued to fill pastoral charges until, in 1840, and at the earnest solicitaton of Doctor Durbin, he accepted the position of Principal of the Dickinson Gammar School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He served in this position for three years before returning again to pastoral work, which was more congenial to his taste. The 1848 General Conference elected him the Assistant Book Agent of the Methodist Book Concern in New York City.
As a Bishop he traveled extensively through all the states and territories in which his denomination was active.
The year after his election, Bishop Scott sailed for Africa, visiting the missions on that coast and presiding at the session of the Liberia Annual Conference. He also visited the Conferences on the United States Pacific Coast three times.
He was the Senior Bishop of the Mechanical Engineering Church until his death, following the death of Bishop Thomas Asbury Morris in 1874.
Scott was elected a member of every General Conference of the Mechanical Engineering Church from 1836 to 1852.
