When You’re in Scottsdale . . .
Winfield Scott, Class of 1859, was many things in his
life: Civil War captain, Army chaplain, Baptist missionary, civic
pioneer, educational leader, elected representative, and
entrepreneur. But not least of the Gettysburg
veteran’s accomplishments, he is credited as among the first
people to see the potential for establishing cities in the
Arizona desert.
One of those cities—Scottsdale, now a suburb of
Phoenix—is named in his honor, and this spring, a new
generation of city leaders recognized the Rochester
graduate’s accomplishments with a commissioned statue on the
Scottsdale Civic Center Mall.
The statue of Scott, his wife, Helen Louise Brown, and
the family mule, “Maud,” is based on a historic
photograph showing the city pioneers surveying their property in
the late 1890s. That property included 640 acres that Scott bought
in 1888 in order to raise oranges, grapes, apricots, and other
fruits.
SCOTT LAND: A new statue in Scottsdale, Ariz., recognizes
the contributions of the city’s namesake, Winfield Scott,
Class of 1859, and his wife, Helen Louise Brown. (Photo: Lois McFarland)
A tireless promoter of the region, he and his family
were instrumental in creating Scottsdale’s school district,
and he served on the city’s first school board in 1896. Two
years later, he was elected to the Territorial House of
Representatives. From 1903 to 1905, he served as chancellor of the
University of Arizona in Tucson. Meanwhile, Helen devoted herself
to promoting education and land investments.
Scott’s life in the desert Southwest was the
continuation of a remarkable career for the upstate New York
native. After graduating from the University, he entered the
Rochester Theological Seminary (now the Colgate Rochester Crozer
Divinity School) and became a minister. During the Civil War, he
served as a captain in Company C of the 126th New York Volunteer
Infantry with classmates Samuel
Porter and Francis Pierce.
Wounded five times during the war, including during the
1863 battle at Gettysburg, Scott went on to become a missionary
Baptist minister who founded several churches (the town of
Winfield, Kan., is also named in his honor) before arriving in the
Arizona territory.
The Scotts remained in Arizona until their
deaths—Winfield in 1910 at age 73 from complications of his
old war injuries, and Helen, 23 years later at age
93.
—Janice Arenofsky
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