Reverend Samuel Scott ~ Methodist Minister and Teacher

The above photo and information taken from the
Souvenir & Home-Coming Edition of The Miami-Gazette
October, 1906

Samuel Scott arrived in Waynesville from Philadelphia in the spring of 1840. He was a brick maker, a gardener and a schoolteacher up until 1850 when he devoted all his time to teaching. He tells the following story about his early experience as a teacher in 1840:

“About this time the public school system in Ohio was introduced. I went to Lebanon, the county seat of Warren County, to be examined as a teacher. Milton Williams, one of the prominent lawyers of that place, had been appointed county examiner. He invited me into a small back room, connected with his office, where I passed through the ordeal of my first examination. He asked me to read a few paragraphs from some book he bought from his office, propounded two or three questions in Geography, and closed up by having me solve a simple problem in proportions, or ‘single rule of three’, as it was termed in those days. He then said, ‘I guess you will pass’ and wrote me out a teacher’s certificate. In the winter of 1840-1841, I taught my first school in this state in what was then called ‘Crosswicks’ district about two miles from Waynesville. The term, or ‘quarter’ as it was then called, consisted of thirteen weeks, or sixty-five days, for which I received $65.00."

In the 1850 Census of Warren County (Wayne Township) Samuel Scott is listed as a 30-year-old Brick Maker married to Rebecca who was 25 years old. In 1850 they had three children: Susan R. (5 years old), Francis (4 years old), and William (1 year old).

In 1841-1842 both Rev. Thomas Collett and he were converted during a revival in Waynesville. He was licensed to exhort in 1843. He was licensed to preach in 1850. He was ordained a Deacon by Bishop Thomas Morris in 1855.

Samuel Scott taught at the Crosswick District School north of Waynesville in the winter of 1840-41 and the fall term of 1856. He taught in the Waynesville Schools from 1850 to 1856. In the fall of 1850 he began teaching in the “Upper School” in Waynesville for four years. The next two years he taught his “Select School” in the old Academy Building.

In November 1856 he began his work with the American Bible Society, as a county agent. He organized township level Bible Societies that were affiliated with the county level Bible Societies. He appointed local agents, usually women, who would canvass school districts, supply Bible to the poor and solicit fund for the larger Society. He would travel to visit all his local agents and on Sundays preach. In November of 1861 he moved from Waynesville to Dayton to put his children in better schools and be more available for his work for the American Bible Society. He lived the last 45 years of his life in Dayton. He rented a room on North Main Street in Dayton for a reading and social room for men. Out of it evolved Dayton’s Young Men's Christian Association.

Rev. Scott as a strong Temperance man. He was involved in the Washingtonian Movement, the Sons of Temperance and The Good Templars. He became involved with the Prohibition Party in 1869 and was a candidate for the governor of Ohio on the Prohibition ticket. He received 700 votes.

He also took an interest in organizing circulating library associations based on the co-operative principal. He did this in an effort to stem the tide of the pernicious literature he felt was flooding the country. He established 319 libraries in Ohio, 6 in Indiana and 3 in Pennsylvania. One of the places in Ohio was Waynesville. Rev. Scott was in Waynesville in the summer and fall of 1879 soliciting funds for a circulating subscription library (Miami-Gazette, August 27th and October 15, 1879). For more information about Samuel Scott see, Rev. Samuel Scott’s Ancestry, A Brief Autobiography of His Life, and Antiquity of the Name of Scott (published in Dayton, Ohio 1902). There is a copy of this work in The Mary L. Cook Public Library in Waynesville.