Martin B. Scott.



Among the names of those who have done business on the river during the
past quarter of a century, that of M. B. Scott, until his retirement a few
years since, held a foremost place. Mr. Scott is a native of New York,
having been born at Deerfield, near Utica, in that State, in March, 1801.

Mr. Scott is of Quaker stock; a lineal descendent in the sixth generation
from the first American Quaker, (Richard Scott, one of the first settlers
of Providence, R. I.,) and in the nineteenth generation from William
Baliol Scott, of Scotts-Hall, Kent, England, in the line of Edward I. His
Quaker ancestors suffered persecution at the hands of the Boston Puritans
in 1658. The daughters of Richard Scott were cast into prison by Endicott,
for avowing their Quaker faith, and his wife Katharine (_ne_ Marbury,
youngest sister of the famous Mrs. Anne Hutchinson) was publicly scourged
in Boston by order of court, for visiting and sympathizing with her Quaker
brethren in prison.

One of the maxims of Mr. Scott's life, was to despise no honest
employment, however laborious; if he failed to obtain such business as he
desired, he took the next best opportunity that offered, a principle that
might be profitably practiced by many young men of the present day.
Deprived of a liberal education, by the pecuniary embarrassments of his
father, who had a large family to support, he left the Utica Academy in