Life
Scott was born in Manhattan and attended public school there. His father died when he was three years old, and his mother never remarried.
He graduated Yale College in 1746, at the age of 16. After further study he was admitted to the New York bar association in 1752, and practiced law in Manhattan, where he also served as an alderman from 1756 to 1761. In 1752, along with William Livingston and William Smith, he founded a weekly journal, the Independent Reflector.
During the Revolutionary War, John Scott was a member of the New York Provincial Congress while also serving as a brigadier general under George Washington in the New York and New Jersey campaign. He commanded the 1st New York (Independent) Battalion, the 2nd New York (County) Battalion, and several New York Militia Regiments. He fought with Putnam's division at the Battle of Brooklyn on August 27, 1776, and was the last of Washington's generals to argue against surrendering Manhattan to the British—possibly due to his large landholdings there, including what is now Times Square and New York City's Theater District.
Twenty days later, on September 16, 1776, Scott led the same battalions and regiments at the Battle of Harlem Heights, an American victory. On October 28, 1776, his forces participated in the inconclusive Battle of White Plains.
After the war, Scott regained his Manhattan estate and was a candidate for the first governorship of New York State, losing to George Clinton. He became, instead, New York's first Secretary of State, a state senator, and served as an active delegate to the Continental Congress.
His body is interred at the north entrance of Trinity Church, New York. His inscribed slab is visible from the corner of Wall Street and Broadway. An equestrian statue is erected in his honor in Upper Manhattan.
Lewis Allaire Scott, John's son, was one of the two Deputy Secretaries of State during his father's tenure, and in 1784 was appointed to succeed him, dying in office in 1798.
Read more about this topic: John Morin Scott
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... marathon swimming is the most difficult physical, intellectual and emotional battleground I have encountered, and each time I win, each time I touch the other shore, I feel worthy of any other challenge life has to offer.”
—Diana Nyad (b. 1949)
“There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto—God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)