AARON T. SCOTT (1772-1862)
Kenneth’s great-great grandfather, AARON T. SCOTT, was Scotch-Irish and a soldier during the War of 1812. He was born in 1772 on the Virginia - Tennessee border and died near Galesburg, Knox County, Illinois in 1862. His wife's name was ANNA AJA [or AGA]. Aaron T. is the earliest Scott ancestor we know about.
MOSES S. SCOTT (1818-1888)
Kenneth’s great grandfather, MOSES SCOTT, was born just across the river in Ohio from Indiana on 3 December 1818, and died on his farm near Blythedale, Missouri on 3 February 1888, at age 70 years. He spent his boyhood in Jefferson County, Indiana, and there was sparingly educated, in that he was able to do little more than to read and to write. He was a brick maker by trade and made the first bricks from which was constructed the first college at Hanover, Indiana (www.hanover.edu), and worked at that and farming, both at his home in Missouri. However, in Missouri he abandoned his trade that he might give his entire attention to farming.
MOSES SCOTT came to Missouri in the company of several families from Knox County, Illinois, where he had spent some three years as a farmer. His outfit for the journey and effects comprised an ox team and a yoke of cows. The journey took from June until September. Among the families forming the caravan was that of JAMES CHAMBERS GRAHAM, his father-in-law, who settled in the same neighborhood. MOSES SCOTT’S settlement was a mile southwest of Blythedale, Missouri. The farm he improved and made it his final home. His old brick kiln was on Big Creek, west of Eaglesville, on the Williams' place.
MOSES SCOTT’S participation in politics was as a Democrat but he never held public office. He was a Baptist of the missionary faith. He lived up to the teachings of the church and was known to be strictly reliable in his dealings with others, paid his way as he went, and never allowed himself to get into debt. The period of the Civil War did not materially affect him except as his own son Elzumer [Kenneth’s great uncle] entered the 23rd Regiment, Missouri Volunteers, Infantry Compound D, and went with General Sherman to the sea.
MOSES SCOTT married MARY ANN GRAHAM, daughter of JAMES CHAMBERS GRAHAM, and JEMIMAH TALBOTT of English descent, on 16 May 1843.
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| MOSES S. SCOTT, 1817-1888 |
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| MARY ANN GRAHAM, 1825-1882 |
AARON GRAHAM SCOTT (1850-1922)
Kenneth’s grandfather, AARON GRAHAM SCOTT, was one of the ante-bellum [post Civil War] settlers in Harrison County, Missouri. He came there in September 1858 with his father, MOSES SCOTT. AARON GRAHAM SCOTT was a native of Jefferson County, Indiana, born near the city of Madison, Indiana, on July 18, 1850.
AARON GRAHAM SCOTT was a child when brought to Harrison County, Missouri and secured a somewhat limited education in the district schools. Starting out as a farmer just before reaching his maturity, he worked for a time as a farm hand at the salary of $15 a month and his employer was PASCHAL BANDY, whose daughter, ANELIZA [or ANN ELIZA] BANDY, Aaron Graham Scott married on 24 August 1871 at her father's home in Blythedale, Missouri. After several years they first rented a small property known as the Grist farm, located near Eagleville and later rented the Landy place. Here he spent a short time. Next he purchased 100 acres of raw land, now the Loveless place. Thus, he improved them and exchanged it for the present place in section 14 township 65 range 27. This was a settled place and he succeeded William Kincade here in 1888.
AARON GRAHAM SCOTT owned 260 acres and was engaged in stock and grain farming. He embarked in short-horn cattle and Poland China hog breeding. His short-horns came from the Kansas bull and he had his first exhibit for prizes in the fall of 1914. In politics he was a Republican and for two years he was assessor of Marion Township.
AARON GRAHAM SCOTT and his wife, ANELIZA BANDY, had thirteen children. She died at the age of 43 on 22 August 1897 of typhoid fever.
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| AARON GRAHAM SCOTT, 1850-1922 |
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| ANELIZA BANDY SCOTT, 1853-1897 |
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| Aaron Graham Scott and sons, 1893. According to Mary's identification on the back of the photo: L to R: Elzumer, Charles, Oscar (Nick), William (Oate), Zene (youngest), Aaron Graham |
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| According to Mary: L to R: Aneliza Bandy Scott holding Ruth, Minnie, Edna and Eva (twins) |
When Kenneth's son Wayne finished his mission in California, he visited his grandfather ELZUMER and obtained genealogical information on the Bandy family from him. At about the same time, Elzumer's brother, Zene, told Mary that PASCHAL BANDY AND LOVICIA HOLLAND were Latter-day Saints. However, they did not go west with the Saints, but affiliated with the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As their daughter ANELIZA was dying she asked her son, ELZUMER, to call the LDS elders for a blessing for her which he refused to do and ‘always regretted this decision.’
After ANELIZA died, AARON married EVA ALICE EYERLY, on 7 September 1898. They had five children, making a total of nineteen children for Aaron Graham! He died on 11 June 1922 in Meridian, Idaho (near Boise).
LETTER FROM ANELIZA BANDY SCOTT
We have a copy of a very touching letter written by ANELIZA to her son, ELZUMER, Kenneth’s father, about a year before she died. ELZUMER, age 22, was living in Desmoines, Iowa at the time.
July 27, 1896
Ridgeway, Missouri
Dear Zumer:
I write you a few lines. It has been raining all morning. The threshers were coming to finish. They were here two nights last week–but very little done–it rained every night. I am tired of them.
I was very much disappointed Saturday evening, as you did not come. Some of the children were out on the style all the afternoon looking. Charlie [age 20] came home Friday night and told us he went up after you. Minnie [age 14] had her chickens dressed–all the work was done so we could hear every word that was said. Charlie never got back until sundown. Cal [Scott] came home with him. I never was so disappointed. Edna [age 7] cried and “wished every man up there was dead so Zumer could come home.”
Ralph [age 1 ½ ] is not well–has not been for several days. The rest of the folks are well, as far as I know. Your Uncle Ol [Scott] is coming back to Missouri. They have failed again. Your Pa is trying to rent a place for him. Pa is gone today to buy calves. If you need money let us know. Can you save any money? I know it takes money to keep a fellow going. Pa is coming up to the fair [at Desmoines]. I would come if you were keeping house.
The Valley singers are getting ready for the Blythedale Picnic. Don’t know when it will be yet. Maybe you can come then. Am not going to look for you until I see you.
Am glad you had a good time the Fourth. I did not go anywhere. Pa and the children went to Ridgeway. I was sick that morning....
Tuesday. We are threshing today [and] it will take a half day tomorrow. Ice cream supper at your Uncle Zumer’s tonight. Pa took his bird dog out hunting last week. and got six prairie chickens–only one got away. He thinks his dog is a dandy. You will have to take a hunt when you come down. Ralph is better today. Eva, Edna [twins, age 7] and Ruth [age 5] got up sick this morning. I think they will be all right in a few days. I have lots of things to tell you before I am done with this life. I must close. It is time to get supper. Your Aunt Mollie [Mary Scott Brinegar, age 35] is helping me. She sends you her best respects, and said tell you she was making apple pies.
Love from all, write soon–
Your Mother and Father
KENNETH’S ACCOUNT OF HIS GRANDFATHER
The following account is in KENNETH’s own words, based on what his father told him:
Grandfather [AARON GRAHAM SCOTT] bought (in l847) 100 acres native land--unimproved--in original sod for $1,000. He started improving with a team of horses, and a plow. They had a few chickens and a milk cow, sow and pigs. He cut timber for the house and fencing from near Big Creek about 3 miles west of the farm. He dug a well about 150 yards from the house at a spring. The well was walled with native stone. The water had to be hauled to the house on a sled--two barrels full at a time. Grandmother [ANELIZA BANDY] often had to carry water to the house when they were busy in the field. Fences were poor and the sow would get into grandmother's chickens. One day after asking Grandpa many times to keep the hogs fenced up, she surprised the family by having a roast pig for dinner. She had killed the hog with a club--cleaned and roasted it. Grandpa could only say how good the pig tasted.
Grandpa Scott's father [MOSES SCOTT] lived on a 40 acre farm near Blythedale, Missouri also. In later years he used to ride a medium sized roan horse named Dick to town. Just before Grandpa Moses died, he gave Dick to Kenneth’s father. Dad was very fond of him and rode him a great deal. Dick liked to swim with dad in the pond. In fact, he would go swimming alone. Dick was quite balky when they first harnessed him to work. He had to be humored awhile to let him get used to the collar on his neck. Dad traded old Dick for a real nice sleigh that he found in Bethany about the time he became interested in going with the girls.
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| Source: Ridgeway: Then and Now, 1880-1980, p. 47 |
Grandfather Scott gave a site for the Baptist Church at Pleasant Valley. Grandpa and Grandma were the charter members. Reverend Joe H. Burrows of Cainsville helped organize the church and for many years was the pastor at Pleasant Valley, coming out there once a month to preach. He drove his team about 7 miles over old clay roads. He never asked for a salary but gladly accepted any small amount the small congregation would give. Grandpa A.G. led the singing. He had a clear tenor voice and often sang solos. Hester Caldwell Harrison played the organ—or tried to. Much of the church was made of fine native walnut. Grandpa always welcomed Baptist ministers to his home. Often itinerant travelers who heard of this would get in posing as Baptist ministers.
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| Ridgeway high school class, including three A. G. Scott children: Ruth, Eva and Edna (Ridgeway Then and Now, p. 66) |
The following account is from a tape-recorded interview with Kenneth, found in the appendix to his and Mary's autobiographies:
My grandfather Scott, I guess it was because he had a family of boys, and in that little town of Ridgeway, they had two drugstores that were pretty close together and there weren’t many stores in that town but they had these two drug stores and they sold liquor on the sly. Grandfather was poisoned on [against] this stuff. He was always trying to find something and he would move in on a...because of his family.
When I was about 10 or 12 years old, Grandfather Scott (he had a farm north of town about 5 miles) would bring a load of corn that he had raised to the mill which was not very far from our home in Ridgeway, and there he grew all that corn and whatever form he wanted--a rough grind or maybe some other grind that we ground into flour for use in the home. The rest of it might be ground up rough as feed for the cows. A dry corn meal or hominy. I guess he had a good watch dog and when my grandfather moved into town when this last family of children were old enough, some of them, to go to high school. They bought this house south of town and it was there when they had this little Dalmatian dog. I’d open the gate, the house sat back in the lot a ways and as I started to approach, the dog was watching and he’d come down and he’d listen. When I’d step to one side, he’d step over in front of me. When I’d step over on the other side, talking to him, he’d be over there. About the third time he did that, he would “Grrrrr”. You’d better start up or he was going to take a hold of you. Just as soon as someone from the house called, “Okay [Pooch?]. That was it.
I never met father’s mother [ANELIZA BANDY]. Grandfather Scott married a second time…[and] he had five boys and two girls in the [second family].
[Kenneth tells about memories of July 4th: going to his grandfather’s farm and shooting off dangerous fireworks, enjoying a band playing in their town, and making home made ice cream made with ice from their ice house.]
When Grandfather Scott got his crops all in--and he’d always feed out some steers--he’d have them already along just about the early fall for sale...then he was ready to go take a trip someplace. And he did take a number of trips...somehow or another he got off into the Boise Valley and was very fascinated with it. He bought a little 15 acre tract or orchard, apples mainly but a few peaches. And he wanted all his family around him. He even wanted Uncle Zene who had a job in Washington in the Interstate Commerce Commission and Uncle Zene got a year’s leave of absence and went out there with Aunt Myrtle and they had a little orchard tract. They got so disappointed out there with that job, trying to make a go of operating an orchard that they gave it up and came back to Washington before the year was up. Then is when my grandfather had this nice big home in Meridian out of Boise about 10 or 15 miles. I believe my grandfather died at that home because he enjoyed that home.
AARON GRAHAM SCOTT MEETS JIMMY SKUNK
Here’s a fun story about his grandfather that Kenneth had in his papers. I’m not sure of the source, but I’m guessing it may have been included in one of their family chain letters.
There had been a heavy snow in the early part of the night, and then it had ceased and all the little folks of the forest and meadow had gone forth in search of food or to gambol in the moonlight, and the fresh snow that lay like a huge carpet over all, hung on bushes, draped over weeds and tufts of grass, making hiding places everywhere for those who must dodge enemies that ever seek to destroy them. By morning Peter Rabbit and his folks had well-beaten paths to all parts of the thicket where they had played tag and hide-and-seek through the still hours of the night. Here and there in the more open spaces could be seen the trail of Billy Mink and Jimmy Skunk where they had passed like dark shadows seeking some low roosting bird or a meadow mouse, or some luckless rabbit that they might surprise and capture. And so it was that when daylight came there was a scramble among the little folks for hiding places. The rabbits found shelter under thick clumps of bushes and under weeds and tufts of grass well covered with snow. Billy Mink crept under a rick of cordwood that happened to be near by, and Jimmy Skunk, finding a small pile of brush well covered with snow, crept underneath, and having a full stomach from his catch, curled up and soon went to sleep, intending to continue his quest for food again when dark shadows returned in the evening.
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| Skunks. Source: www.birdphotos.com (via Wikimedia Commons) |
Clothes were sent out to the woodshed for Graham to change. His coat and pants, which had not received a direct charge, were hung out on the line a few days until the perfume left. But his boots had to go through a more drastic process of deodorization. He had heard that burying in the ground would draw out the scent. Did it? Well, a few weeks afterward when Graham came to Sunday School at the Pleasant Valley Baptist Church (which he attended faithfully) and stood around the wood-burning stove with others warming themselves before services, Omar sniffed a little and looking down at Graham's boots, said, “Graham, I think you dug them up too soon.” And maybe he did!!
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