Florence Orcutt's Notes

(8) Frederic Scott       b. Feb. 9, 1804 in Watertown, Conn. (1805 Waters Bible)          d. Feb. 16, 1863

          Obituary of Frederic Scott:

In Huntsburg, Feb. 16, 1863, of cancerous affection of the liver and other internal organs, Frederic Scott aged 58 years.  The deceased was one of the pioneer settlers of Huntsburg, having emigrated here from the State of New York with his father, Aaron Scott in 1819.  In common with other settlers, he commenced his life in the woods, and cheerfully endured the hardships and privations so incident to the first settlers of a new country.

By honest and industrious toil, he acquired a competence for his family, and lived to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

In early life, he became a member of the Disciple Church.  He was a liberal as well as practical christian, a devoted husband, a kind, and indulgent father; a charitable citizen; a lover of temperance, and was respected and loved by all who knew him. 

The loss of such a man is a public calamity, for the open hand of charity was freely extended to the poor, the sick, and the afflicted.  Tho sad, sad indeed is this bereavement to his family, he has left assurance that his earthly labors were completed.  The funeral was attended by a large concourse of people desirous of paying the last sad tribute of respect to departed worth, and slow was the hand to close the coffin over that face from which light and good had so often beamed.

                   Children of Frederic and Dolly Scott:

                             1. – Elvira                              b. April 4, 1832            d. Dec. 8, 1902 
                                                                         m. Russel Gray,  May 24, 1870      
                                                          Sadie (Sarah) Gray – daughter

                             2. – Sarah Almeda                  b. May 4, 1834             d. Jan. 23, 1875
                                                          (daughter Floy Clapp Little)

                                                          m. Ed Clapp (Frederic Orcutt’s notes include Samuel Church Clapp.  Unclear if son of full name of Ed Clapp.)

                             3. – Julia Ann                         b. Aug. 28, 1836          d. July 6, 1837

                             4. – Martha Janette (Nettie)        b. Jan. 5, 1841    d. Nov. 12, 1916

                                                           m. Darwin Waters, Nov. 26, 1868

                             5. – John Frederic                  b. Dec. 5, 1843             d. Feb. 24, 1907

                                                           In Mattoon, Illinois – Mayor 25 years
                                                           m. Sophia Clark, Oct. 11, 1868

          Many people have told me (Florence Waters Orcutt) what a grand place it was to visit at “Uncle Fred’s” (Frederic Scott).  He was always jolly and liked nothing better than to have a crowd of young people in his home.  “Aunt Dolly” and he would sit on the haircloth sofa – he with his arm around her.  She was in poor health for many years and Aunt Vira (the oldest daughter was the house keeper.  Her one child was my cousin Sadie (Sadie Gray) 3 mo. Older than I.  Sarah (Frederic Scott’s second daughter) was Edna’s and Mae’s mother.  But Aunt Sarah died when Edna was 3 years old (before either Edna or I could remember).  Her father married for his second wife “Aunt Cornelia” – Aunt Mary Russell’s sister.

          During all our childhood Sadie and her mother, Edna’s family and our family lived in Bloomfield and the 5 girl cousins (Mae, Edna, Sadie, Elva and I) were constant playmates.  Fred Clapp and Ralph Waters, the 2 boys among us were not so much a part of our little girlhood because one was older and the other younger.  They both became doctors.

          We had frequent family gatherings for in addition to the 3 families mentioned in Bloomfield lived Uncle Dwight and Aunt Mary Smith (Justin Smith’s and Mattie Chase’s parents).  They had a general store on the corner next to our home.  Then there were Aunt Martha and Uncle Chauncey Savage.  Aunt Martha was a sister of Dolly Wright Scott (my Grandma).  They also kept a general store and always brought candy and presents for us children.  Also in Bloomfield were Aunt Mary and Uncle Lon Russell -- parents of Delos (sp?Short for Delores?). When I first remember Uncle Lon had a sawmill and the sound of the saw and sight of sawdust always take me back to his mill.  Later Uncle Lon had a general store which Delos and Mae continued, as also the Post Office.    

(9) Martha Janette (Nettie) Scott        b. Jan. 5, 1841              d. Nov. 14, 1916

                   m. Darwin W. Waters, Nov. 26, 1868 (Thanksgiving Day)

          First they owned a farm in Huntsburg, Ohio, where I (Florence Waters Orcutt) was born – then moved to Bloomfield, Ohio, where Elva and Ralph were born.  Our home was a pretty frame house with 1 ½ acres of land.  We had a nice orchard and always a good garden with strawberries, grapes, etc.  There was a white picket fence across the front-square pickets pointed at the top; and the posts with iron braces set in flag-stones and our front walk and steps were stone (before the days of cement).

          My Mother (Nettie Scott Waters) was a very superior woman (Grand-mother Pluma Waters used to tell me so when I was a little girl, others told me so later, and I know from my own observation that she had a very find mind and was an outstanding mother.  Before her marriage she taught school in Prairie-du-Chien, Wisconsin, where she went to be near her friend, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, who wrote “Laugh and the world laughs with you.”  Mother was an omnivorous reader, but never read to the neglect of her home duties, for I never knew a more devoted housekeeper.  It was said of her that she had a place for everything and everything in its place.  She was orderly, neat, and precise.

          Her brother, John Frederic Scott (he had two sons, Earl Clark Scott and Montague Scott) was a handsome man, as I remember him, tall and weighing over 200 lbs., quite long, brown hair, long mustache and deep blue eyes.  He was a lawyer of note, and at our time Mayor of Mattoon, Illinois, where he lived all his grown-up life (25 years).

          May Wright Sewell, who was head of a girls’ school in Indianapolis, and prominent in the Woman Suffrage movement, was a cousin of mothers.  Dr. Charlie Wright, a prominent physician of Altamont, Ill., was also a cousin.

          Nettie Scott Waters had excellent discipline and held high ideals for her children.  Sister Elva and I always went to Sunday School with our little red Testaments.  Mother was honest and just – one of her maxims:  “Be just before you are generous.”  She got a new book for each of her children each birthday.  I have often wondered how she could get as many books as she did for books were not as plentiful in those days.  We always went to school unless really ill – no excuses passed with Mother.  Elva and I were always well dressed, better than most of the little girls.  We did our portion of the housework every day.  I washed dishes when I had to stand on a stool to reach the dishpan.  We filled the woodbox, picked up chips, brought up apples, and vegetables from the cellar, picked and shelled peas, chopped cabbage (and never shall I forget how fine it had to be) picked strawberries and currants, and gathered apples, but it is in the doing of these many things that be some of our happiest childhood memories, for we were always “playing” something while doing our work.

          Father (Darwin Waters) was member of School Board and was instrumental in procuring better teachers and better text books (I am suspicious that Mother had much to do with that).  Never have I known a better teacher than our H.S. Principal Dr. Reeves, who taught us to read in a most intelligible way (singly and in concert); grammar was his hobby, and his pupils feel lifelong gratitude for his training in the use of good English – tho nothing but the best of English could be spoken in the presence of our Mother.

          The joys of those childhood days can never be obliterated, - the evenings gathered round the table before the big drum stove with a large pan of apples (Baldwins, Northern Skies (sp?) , Greenings and Russets) setting before the fire – we children with our books and slates lying on the table, Father with his newspaper, and Mother with her sewing.  But there was not dilly-dallying when the stroke of bedtime sounded – up we scurried to our bedroom – and never can we forget that room of our childhood, where we played with our dolls and paper dolls. Every Saturday we had to sweep and dust and straighten, for Mother’s inspection.

          Ralph our baby brother, came when I was 12, and he slept after his baby days were over in the cherry bed in the S.W. room.

          Darwin Whiting Waters, my father, was next to the oldest son of Milton and Pluma Waters, and spent the larger portions of his boyhood on his father’s farm, with comparatively little schooling.  He served three years in the War between the States in the 7^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the campaign of the East, was wounded in his right arm at Chancellorsville, sent home for furlough, but went back, was transferred to the Army of the West under Gen. Grant and Gen. Hooker, then marched with Sherman on his famous March to the Sea.  He always said he would not apply for a pension as long as he was able to work, but in the latter years of his life, after pensions were granted to all veterans, he did received $30 a month.

          Darwin Waters owned a farm in Huntsburg and lived there for a time after marriage, then sold farm and moved to Bloomfield, Ohio.  He sold lightning rods (every house had lightning rods then), later pumps and windmills.  Then he bought and sold cattle and hogs – always had a nice team of horses (Dick and Dan).  He served as Township Trustee and also as member of the School Board and was a prominent citizen of the little town of Bloomfield.

          When Elva and I were grown girls the Family moved to Austinburg, Ashtabula County, Ohio, that we children might attend Grand River Institute, and Elva, Ralph, and I all graduated from G.R.I.  I graduated in 1894 with a diploma from the “Classical Course.”  Before that I had completed a “Business Course” under Professor Gegenheimer (sp?).  It was at G.R.I. that we came under the tutelage of Father McClelland one of the greatest and best influences of our lives.

          It was here at Austinburg that I met and married Robert Orcutt.  His father, W.E. Orcutt (your Grand-father Orcutt) was Post Master for a great many years, owned a shoe store, and was Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the G.R.I.  His wife, Dora Orcutt, died when Robert was but 12, and Orpha Orcutt (see Orcutt Genealogy) came to keep house for the motherless boys and their father.  She remained with them till Walter and Merton went west to seek their fortunes.

          Robert left school early, and clerked in Barnes’ store in Austinburg, then in Ashtabula, then in Geneva, then Cleveland and finally to Sioux City, Iowa, where his brothers were located.

          Ralph Waters graduated from Grand River Institute, then from Adelbert College (Science and Letters) then from the Medical College of Western Reserve University, both of the latter in Cleveland, Ohio.

          He practiced first in Sioux City, Iowa, then in Kansas City, Mo., then became an “Associate Professor of Surgery in charge of Anesthesia” at Wisconsin University.  (My father-in-law is an anesthetist and recalls studying Ralph Waters in school.  He is known as the Father of Modern Anesthesiology.)

          So your fore-fathers and mothers have been men and women of the ordinary walks of life, many of them farmers, but in none of the many lines have I ever heard of one of whom we may not be proud, or who has not added his bit to the up-building of his or her nation and race.  Valiant “Pioneers” all of them, ever pushing westward, first to New England, then to New York State some of them, all of them to Ohio.  The northern part of Ohio was Connecticut’s “Western Reserve” to which most of our ancestors emigrated from Massachusetts and Connecticut.

          Some of us pushed on to Iowa (when we came on to the scene of action) where you came into the story, and will carry it on thru the years.

          I have not tried to numerate events which occurred within your remembrance.  Perhaps you will write them for your children and grandchildren.

© 2003 Danielle Skjelver