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biography from Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
ORION C. SCOTT, Superintendent of the City Schools of Oskaloosa, is a native of Belmont County, Ohio, where he was born July 14, 1851. He is a son of Rev. G. M. and Hadassah S. (Cotton) Scott. The father was born in Guernsey County, and Mrs. Scott in Jefferson County, Ohio. The subject of this sketch was reared in Ohio, but came with his parents in the fall of 1865 to Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa, where he attended the High School. In the fall of 1869 he went to Marshalltown, Iowa, where during the winter he attended the High School of that city, its Principal being Hon. P. M. Sutton, present State Senator. In the spring and summer of 1870, Mr. Scott taught his first school, ten miles east of Marshalltown, and in the fall of that year, in company with two young men of that city, D. A. Holmes and Edward Willigrod, he attended the academical de department of the State University at Iowa City. In 1872-73, he taught district school, and in the summer and fall of 1874, he was in the office of Train Dispatcher of the Central Iowa Railway at Marshalltown, Iowa. He then resumed teaching in Marshall County until the fall of 1875, when he was selected as Assistant Principal of the High School of Oskaloosa, and in 1876 was elected Principal at an increased salary. He again returned to the University, where he spent two years, graduating in June, 1878. After his graduation, he accepted a call at Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa, to take charge of the schools which he had attended several years before. In February, 1882, he resigned his position at Tipton to accept the principalship of the High School at Oskaloosa, and filled that position until the summer of 1886, when he was elected upon the first ballot and by the unanimous vote of the School Board, to the position of Superintendent of the City Schools, succeeding Prof. Homer H. Seerley, now Principal of the State Normal School at Cedar Falls, Iowa. Mr. Scott has been a member of the State Teachers' Association for ten years, missing only one of its annual gatherings in that time, and that in the year 1884, when in company with Mr. C. P. Rogers and a delegation of teachers, they visited the World's Fair at New Orleans. For eleven years he has been actively engaged in conducting Normal Institutes, and during the past four years has conducted the graded Normal Institute of Jefferson County. The present year (1887) he is conducting the Normal Institute in Clarke County, and assists in the graded Normal Institute of this county. Supt. Scott took the full collegiate and Normal courses in the Iowa State University, receiving the degree of A. B. upon his graduation, that of Bachelor of Didactics in 1880, and the degree of A. M. in 1881. He was married at Brooklyn, Poweshiek Co., Iowa, June 26, 1879, to Miss Mary, daughter of Thomas and Rachel M. (Guernsey) Flagler, of New York. She was born in Niagara County, N. Y., in November, 1851. The marriage ceremony was performed by the father of Prof. Scott, assisted by Prof. S. N. Fellows, of the State University. Of this union there are four children-Harold O., Mabel E., Ralph C. and Bertha M. Politically Mr. Scott is a Republican. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and of the Legion of Honor. Mr. and Mrs. Scott are members of the Congregational Church. As a teacher, Prof. Scott ranks among the able educators of the State, and he owes his present position solely to his ability as an instructor.
Portrait & Biographical Album of Mahaska Co., Iowa, 1887
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy