SUTTON SELWYN SCOTT

BIOGRAPHY and GENEALOGY

(1799 VA.-aft. 1904 AL)

HUNTSVILLE, FLORENCE, ATHENS,

DECATUR, TUSCUMBIA, RUSSELL COUNTY, ALABAMA

SUTTON SELWYN SCOTT was the son of JAMES GREENE SCOTT and wife, ANN (BIDDLE) SCOTT. JAMES GREENE SCOTT was born in Dinwiddie, near the line of Brunswick county, Virginia in the latter part of November, 1799.

When but little over nineteen years of age he left his home in the Old Dominion and came to Alabama. His education was imperfect, being only such es could be obtained at "the old field school" of pioneer days; but he was able to make the most of it, as he was a man of quick and vigorous parts. He was in fact what might be termed a mechanical genius, for, while he never served an apprenticeship to a trade, he could do almost any kind of work, from the making of a bureau or carriage to the building of a house. He therefore found an easy and ready support for himself at Huntsville, a village then just beginning to grow in what has since become the garden spot of Alabama—the Tennessee valley.

Here, soon after his arrival, he met and married ANN BIDDLE, who had come out to Alabama with her brother, JOHN BIDDLE, from Raleigh, N. C. She died during the forties in the prime of life, having been for many years a faithful member of the Methodist church. His death occurred fully fifty years afterwards, when he was about ninety years old; at Huntsville also, where he had continuously resided since coming to the State. He was a plain, unpretending and peaceful citizen; a man of integrity and uprightness, and, in his latter years, a member of the Baptist church.

The homestead in Virginia, where he was born, was also the birthplace of his father, JOHN SCOTT. The place was the one settled by the father of this JOHN SCOTT (named JOHN also), who had immigrated to this country from Scotland. There seems a probability, however, of his having come by way of England, after a brief residence therein, as he gave to his Virginian home a distinctively English name, "Old London."

It may interest some to know that the birthplace of WINFIELD SCOTT was in the immediate vicinity. These two JOHN SCOTTS, father and son, were planters, and had considerable property in lands and slaves, which, it should be noted, during the lifetime of the latter, were sadly reduced by a lax and somewhat profuse Virginian hospitality. PROF. CHAS. C. THACH, president of Alabama Polytechnic institute, wrote of COL. SCOTT and his literary productions: "The subject matter of COL SCOTT'S books is concerned largely with these stirring times (times just before the great war) ; and in this varied drama it can be said without exaggeration that the author knew intimately most of the great actors, and himself played no inconspicuous role in the inner circle at the making of much of that history. And so it results that his sketches of Southern life are of peculiar value and interest, being as they are, not mere pictures of fancy, or the vague shadows of tradition, but an accurate and vivid portrayal of the manners, customs and sentiments, with which he had come in contact.

Prominent as moulding influences upon COL SCOTT'S life and writings, the most cursory historian will detect the influences of that section of Alabama, in which he was born and spent his early days—the valley of the Tennessee. Throughout his early life, this entire section, in the lap of which rest Florence, Tuscumbia, Athens, Decatur and Huntsville, was famous for a high degree of education and social refinement. Huntsville especially was the center of marked intellectual activity and culture.

Some of the most powerful orators and brilliant leaders of Southern thought and letters made the beautiful little city their home: C. C. CLAY, RICHARD WALKER and POPE WALKER, ROBERT BRICKELL, EGBERT JONES, JERE CLEMENTS, NICHOLAS DAVIS and a host of others, whose names have become household words in Alabama. A literary atmosphere pervaded the place, while at the bar and on the hustings could be enjoyed exhibitions of an oratory that was not only burning with passion, but expressed with artistic grace and elegance.

Naturally such influences for a talented young man were full of inspiration and attraction, and they enlisted the ambitions of COL. SCOTT, when a mere youth, in an undying attachment to the achievements of literature and political life. Nor should one ignore the influence upon him of the natural scenery by which he was surrounded. The pastoral loveliness of the Tennessee valley is scarcely surpassed if it be matched by any other section of Alabama. Its broad fertile fields,, its orchards, its superb forests, and, in the county of Madison, the deep blue slopes of mountains and hills rolling away in placid lines of beauty, soft as a dream; with a noble river flashing in the distance like a girdle of burnished silver: the whole picture is one of surpassing loveliness, tranquillity and peace. Evidently these influences were gathered like a rich distillation into the early experience of the author; for his sensitive and affectionate treatment of the beauties of forest and field and sky is one of the most distinguished qualities of his attractive style."

COL SCOTT was graduated in 1850 at East Tennessee University (now University of Tennessee) near Knoxville, and read law with ACKEN & HALE, prominent attorneys of North Alabama. In 1857 he was elected to the legislature, defeating JOHN T. HADEN, one of the strongest men of that section—the man who had defeated JERE CLEMENTS for the legislature m 1855. Young SCOTT was re-elected in 1859 after a most exciting canvass. His speech in this canvass at Huntsville, upon the vote of which the election hinged, was said to have been one of great eloquence and power, so much so as to call forth the wildest applause. GEN. L. P. WALKER, the great lawyer, at the close of the speech, lifted his hat and exclaimed, "That was the finest speech ever made in the Huntsville courthouse."

COL. SCOTT was a member of the extra session of the legislature called by Gov. A. B. MOORE about the time the States seceded from the union. He was a member with BULLOCK, MORGAN, WATTS, MEEK, CLENTON, PHELAN, POLLARD and others of the committee that met PRESIDENT DAVIS at West Point, Ga., in 1861, en route to his inauguration at Montgomery. In 1863 he succeeded HON. DAVID HUBBARD as Confederate commissioner of Indian affairs, and spent much of his time in the Indian Territory, working to keep the Indians quiet, and prevent depredations upon the exposed frontiers of Arkansas and Texas.

In 1864 he married MISS LULA M. HURT, of Columbus, Ga., daughter of WILLIAM HURT, planter of Russell county, Ala., who was a son of WILLIAM HURT, of North Carolina, a gallant soldier of the Revolution. At the close of the war COL. SCOTT settled upon his plantation in Russell county, Alabama. His adopted county sent him to the convention of 1875 that framed the Constitution of the State, and to the legislatures of 1884 and 1890. He was a delegate to the Cincinnati Democratic convention of 1880; was appointed by MR. CLEVELAND, in 1884, a commissioner to adjudicate depredation claims in New Mexico, and appointed by the same President, in 1895, a commissioner to the Ute Indians of Utah. He was chairman of this commission.

COL. SCOTT was a voluminous writer to periodicals over different pen-names, and had been quite active as a speaker upon the hustings and the rostrum. He did much vigorous and eloquent canvassing in behalf of good government in Alabama, and generously responded (and with effect) to the many calls made upon him for public addresses, literary as well as political. In 1880 he published "Southbooke," a small volume of tales, sketches, etc., illustrative of Southern manners and life. High tributes to the literary merits of the book were tendered by such men as S. S. COX, ALBERT PIKE, BISHOP McTYIERE, B. F. MEEK and other men eminent in letters. COL. SCOTT'S style is crisp, nervous and graphic; it is marked by scholarly precision and polish; is frequently distinguished by a neat antithesis that suggests a loving study of MACAULAY; and is always characterized by a lucidity that delights the reader, for it never demanded a second perusal in order to be understood.

His sketches of Southern life display an accurate rendering of its typical phases and abound in humor and exciting incident. As an orator COL. SCOTT was most effective and convincing. He preserved the very best traditions of that fine school of oratory for which our section was once so justly famous, but which, alas! like so many of the admirable things of the olden time, is being ruthlessly obliterated and put to scorn by the new light and gospel of progress. Commanding in person, widely read upon all questions of the day, and familiar with all that is best in our great literature, with a rich, but chaste, vocabulary, and a resonant voice, COL. SCOTT never failed to carry his hearers with him. He was never merely grandiloquent; he indulged in no cheap extravagant humor; but by his profound earnestness, broad fund of information, and scholarly knowledge, appealed to the highest qualities of heart and mind of his audience. COL. SCOTT was a resident of Auburn, Alabama — stout, healthy and vigorous—and apparently had many years of useful life before him in 1904ⁱ