Essex County NJ Archives Biographies.....Orange SCOTT 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 9, 2008, 5:12 pm

Author: Rev. Joseph F. Folsom

SCOTT, Rev. Orange,
Minister, Hymnist.

  When camp meetings came into vogue they brought about in time their own
literature. The institution endured long enough to produce books, tracts,
traditions and hymns. Viewed in the retrospect the movement was accompanied by
much of the dramatic and the romantic. The traveling preacher was a picturesque
figure and the protracted meetings in the woods were crammed with incident.

  There is a little book of hymns, published in 1831, which has especial
interest. It is entitled "A New and Improved Camp Meeting Hymn Book." It was
compiled by Orange Scott, and printed by the Merriams at Brookfield,
Massachusetts. One of the most curious hymns in this collection is an Indian
dialect hymn. Imagine a congregation of the present day, soberly singing the
following really tender and pathetic verses:

In de dark wood, no Indian nigh, 
Den me look heaven, and send up cry
Upon my knee so low. 
Den God on high in shining place, 
See me in night wid teary face, 
De priest he tell me so.

He sends he angel take me care,
He come heself to hear me prayer,
If Indian heart do pray.
He see me now, he know me here, 
He say, poor Indian neber fear, 
Me wid you night and day.

So me lub God wid inside heart, 
He fight for me, he take um part,
He save um life before;
God lub poor Indian in de wood,
Den me lub God, and dat be good;
Me pray him two times more.

  Orange Scott, the compiler of this camp meeting hymnal, once lived in Newark,
New Jersey, and there he died, July 31, 1847. He purchased a home at 50 Dark
Lane in that city in the summer of 1846, and took possession in September. About
a year after his going there he died of consumption, aged forty-eight years. He
was buried at Springfield, Massachusetts, where an oration over him was
pronounced by Rev. Lucius Matlack.

  Orange Scott was born February 13, 1801, at Brookfield, Vermont. The family
was so poor that the boy's schooling totaled but thirteen months, and his
religious opportunities were the scantier because of lack of proper clothing to
wear to church. While living at Barre, Vermont, in 1820 he was converted at a
camp meeting. He was licensed as a local preacher in 1822. In 1834 he was the
presiding elder of the Providence (Rhode Island) district.

  Scott was strong in his attitude against slavery. In 1837 he engaged "in a
somewhat extensive Anti-slavery Agency." His health failed in 1840, and he
removed to Newbury, Vermont, to engage in manual labor and to write occasionally
for the press. With two others he founded in 1842 the "Wesleyan Methodist
Church," the object of which was the elimination of the episcopal features of
the Methodist body. He edited "The True Wesleyan" for some years.

  Orange Scott is said to have been one of the most popular preachers of New
England. He was noted for his controversial abilities and had a voice of great
compass and power.

  Many a Newarker, it is safe to say, would find it difficult to give, offhand,
the location of Dark Lane, the street in which Rev. Orange Scott made his home.
Perhaps some citizens will be surprised to learn that, in this day of light, a
Dark Lane exists in Newark. Dark Lane formerly ran from South Orange avenue, at
the intersection of Jones street, in a southwesterly direction, as far as
Spruce, then called Harbour street. When Springfield avenue came into existence
Dark Lane ended at that avenue. We are not able to state how Dark Lane got its
name. We imagine it was so far out of town that at night it was a gloomy road,
and gained thus its title. This old-time street still survives in part. It can
be seen at the junction of Jones street and South Orange avenue, cutting its
crooked path through the apex formed by those two thoroughfares. After crossing
Hayes street it twists in toward Fourteenth avenue, and there gets lost behind
some buildings.

  Though all the sketches of Scott state that he died July 31, 1847, there is
found in the local papers of Newark of that time no reference to the death of
this noted man, who once set the New England circuits afire with his eloquence.
                           J. F. F.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

MEMORIAL CYCLOPEDIA OF NEW JERSEY

UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF MARY DEPUE OGDEN

VOLUME III
MEMORIAL HISTORY COMPANY NEWARK,  NEW JERSEY
1917


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