- ROBERT WILILAM SCOTT, the affable and courteous superintendent
of Oak Hill Cemetery,
- Janesville, Rock County, has a thorough comprehension of
landscape art, and has produced some exceedingly beautiful scenic
effects in the field of his work. He has made Oak Hill Cemetery
a notable and attractive city of the dead, worthy of the admiration
of all who have come to feel that the last resting place of this
poor mortality should be adorned with all that can speak of faith
and hope and life forever.
- Mr. SCOTT was born in Glasgow, Scotland, March 15, 1844,
and remained in his native
- country until he had reached the age of fourteen years, when
he came to Toronto, Canada. There he had relatives, with whom
he made his abode for some years. In 1863 he came into the United
States, and in the following February enlisted in the Union army,
being mustered into service as a member of Company F, 35th Wis.
V.I., and participating in the stirring scenes and events that
marked the closing year of the Civil war. He was in the Mobile
campaign, helped to capture Spanish Fort, and after the collapse
of the Confederacy did duty in Texas until his discharge from
the service, April 15, 1865. Coming back to Wisconsin, he found
employment with the Northwestern Railway Co., and was in their
service several years. On Aug. 5, 1868, he was appointed to
his present position, which he has filled continuously since
that date. Then the cemetery consisted of only twenty acres,
and the improvements were of the most meager character, the whole
grounds having the appearance of a forest. The grounds now consist
of fifty-eight acres, all improved beyond criticism, and maintained
in the most perfect order. Mr. SCOTT has several assistants.
After he had been with the association eighteen years his present
residence, located on the grounds, was built for him. It is
a handsome and convenient house, and an attractive home. The
cemetery is just outside the city limits and is reached by street
cars running to its gates every thirty minutes. In 1899 a chapel
was erected at the cemetery for the use of patrons, at a cost
of $2,500 - a convenient and tasteful structure.
- Mr. SCOTT owns a farm of 113 acres, adjoining the cemetery,
which yearly is becoming more
- valuable on account of its proximity to the flourishing city
near which it is located. On June 7, 1866, he married Miss Mary
Jane GODDEN, a daughter of Robert and Rebecca (BOND) GODDEN.
She was born in England June 8, 1844, and came to this country
with her family in 1859, settling near Janesville, where her
father engaged in farming. Mr. and Mrs. SCOTT have had ten children,
of whom four, Willie, Charles, Archibald D. and Martha, are deceased.
Two of them died in a single night from scarlet fever. The
living are: James W. is married; he is now a drug clerk in Janesville.
Walter R. is a druggist at Puyallup, Wash., is married, and
has three children. Isabel is the wife of Frank PIERCE, of Janesville,
Wis., and has one child. Marion E., Gertrude F., and Luella
M. are at home. Mr. and Mrs. SCOTT are members of the First
Presbyterian Church, and are highly respected, not only in their
church associations, but in their social relations as well.
He usually votes the Republican ticket, but is not blindly partisan
in his political relations, seeking always by his ballot to promote
the best government of the people by aiming to bring men and
principles together.
- Mr. SCOTT's father died in Scotland in 1847, leaving a widow
and one child. She subsequently
- married William NIXON, by whom she had three children. He
also died in Scotland. She came to the United States, an lived
for some years with her son, the subject of this article, dying
in Philadelphia, Penn., where the three children by her second
husband - William, John and Sarah - reside.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin"
(c) 1901, pp. 264-265.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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