John A. Scott Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1251-1252 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				JOHN A. SCOTT. 

	John A. Scott is one of the representative agriculturists and 
leading citizens of Minnehaha county, South Dakota, who for two 
successive terms represented his district in the state legislature. He 
owns and operates a farm of three hundred and forty acres on sections 
27 and 34, Valley Springs township, which is conceded to be some of the 
best and most valuable land in the county. His birth occurred in 
Washington county, Ohio, on the 21st of December, 1854, his parents 
being Robert L. and Sarah (Freeman) Scott, who were likewise natives of 
the Buckeye state. The father, an agriculturist by occupation, removed 
to Lyon county, Iowa, in 1884 and four years later came to South 
Dakota, locating in Valley Springs township, Minnehaha county, where he 
died a short time afterward-on the 10th of April, 1888, when in the 
fifty-eighth year of his age. The mother was called to her final rest 
in March, 1902, at the age of seventy-two years. 

	John A. Scott was reared under the parental roof and attended the 
common schools in the acquirement of an education. On the 3d of 
February, 1877, when twenty-two years of age, he was joined in wedlock 
to Miss Mary M. Addy, of Bellflower, Illinois, and immediately 
afterward started out as an agriculturist on his own account, 
cultivating rented land in McLean county, Illinois, to which place his 
parents had removed when he was an infant. He continued farming in 
McLean county until the spring of 1882, when he came to South Dakota 
but shortly afterward removed across the line into Iowa, where he 
followed farming as a renter for about six years. In 1885 he purchased 
two hundred and seventy-two acres of his present home farm in Valley 
Springs township, Minnehaha county, South Dakota, paying eleven dollars 
an acre for the property, and in 1888 took up his abode thereon. In the 
years which have since intervened he has extended the boundaries of his 
place by additional purchase until it now embraces three hundred and 
forty acres. As an agriculturist he has won a most gratifying and well 
deserved measure of success, having brought his property under a high 
state of cultivation and improvement and annually harvesting rich crops 
which find a ready sale on the market. He was one of the organizers of 
the Benclare Telephone Company and still serves in the capacities of 
superintendent, secretary and lineman. 

	To Mr. and Mrs. Scott have been born ten children, nine of whom 
survive, as follows: Lilly M., who is the wife of Elward Harvey, of 
Beach, North Dakota; Elmer A., who follows farming in Split Rock 
township, Minnehaha county; Harry E., who operates the home farm; 
George Marion, at home; Albert L., an agriculturist of Sioux Falls 
township; Stella, the wife of Elmer Allen, who is engaged in business 
at Valley Springs; Sheldon, who follows farming in Valley Springs 
township, and Laura and Howard, both at home 

	Mr. Scott is a republican in politics and has been for many years 
a prominent factor in the local councils of his party. He has served as 
a member of the school board ever since coming to South Dakota and has 
exerted his best efforts in behalf of the cause of education. In 1909 
he was elected to the state legislature and in 1911 was returned to 
that honorable body, representing his district for two successive terms 
and making a record of which his constituents had every reason to be 
proud. His religious faith is indicated by his membership in the 
Methodist Episcopal church at Benclare, to which his wife also belongs 
and in which he serves as trustee and steward. The period of his 
residence in Minnehaha county and South Dakota covers more than a 
quarter of a century, and the circle of his acquaintance is so wide 
that his record cannot fail to prove of interest to many of our 
readers.