Short Biography of Jesse Scott

Jesse Scott was a staunch Virginian, a Jeffersonian Democrat in politics and anti-slavery. Nobody in the mountain counties held slaves in large numbers; some domestic servants and a few field hands. Life was different from what it was on the Tidewater plantations where many slaves were indispensable. At the time when political passions ran high on the slavery question, Jesse Scott liberated the slaves he owned. The moment was ill chosen and his action not only cost him pecuniary loss but provoked bitter resentment of his friends and neighbors.

Jesse Scott was first of the family to cross the Mason and Dixon line and he directed his steps toward Indiana because it was reputed a Southern sympathizing state. Later the rest of Jesse Scott's family followed to see a new home in Indiana.

***********

The congregation in those days consisted of barely fifty people; strictly speaking, it consisted of two families, the Reids and the Scotts, who were inextricably related to one another. All these people, originally from Ireland, had likewise come into Indiana from Virginia. They were of the race of the so-called Scotch-Irish, endowed with many sterling qualities and stern virtues, that has played an important part in the history of the American Republic.

Source: "A Papal Chamberlain -- The Personal Chronicle of Francis Augustus MacNutt" ⁴⁹