Representative David Hamilton Scott View All Years

DAVID HAMILTON SCOTT.

Mr. Speaker—Your committee appointed to prepare resolutions commemorative of the life, character and public services of the late Hon. David Hamilton Scott, formerly a member of the House of Representatives in the 26th General Assembly, beg leave to submit the following:

David Hamilton Scott was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, on June 27th, 1825, and died at his residence in Albia, Iowa, December 21st, 1918, aged 92 years, 5 months and 24 days. He emigrated to Monroe County, Iowa, from Indiana in the fall of 1850, four years after this state was first admitted to the Union. His was the experience and his the life of the sturdy Iowa pioneer; his was the labor and his was the privilege to aid in the development and assist in the shaping of this greatest of all commonwealths. On October 16th, 1845, he was united in marriage to Mary Wills with whom he lived an ideal married life until her death June 19th, 1914. Born in that period of the Nation’s history when the now firmly established principles of a united government was then being molded into shape and formulated into unchangeable tradition; a student at all times of contemporaneous events he learned the lessons of patriotism and of union laid down by the founders of this country and expounded by such men as Madison, Webster, and Lincoln.

In the summer of 1862, responsive to those teachings and in answer to the call of his country, in order to maintain the liberties which we prize and the rights which we undertake to maintain, he enlisted in the service of his country in Company A, 36th Iowa Infantry and was commissioned Second Lieutenant. In this capacity and with his regiment he continued to serve until on account of failing health he was compelled to resign his commission and return home the following year. His conspicuous sacrifice as well as that of his faithful wife who was left at that period with limited means and a family of seven daughters to carry on the work at the farm home in that early and privation stage of his community, affords that undying evidence of loyalty which assures the perpetuity of our government and makes us of this latter generation their everlasting debtors.

Among other offices of public trust to which his fellow citizens called him as an evidence of their esteem and confidence, he was elected in November, 1895, as a member of the 26th General Assembly of Iowa. He served in the regular session of that Assembly and was a member of the extra session which was convened in 1897, and made the last revision of our code.

Pioneer as he was, loyal, serving, and sacrificing, vigorous in mind and body, possessed of the highest ideals characteristic of such early settlers, he typified that Iowa citizenship which has had so much to do in placing this State in the front rank of the sisterhood of the Republic. It was, therefore, but fitting that one so endowed and thus identified should honor and be honored by his County by such election. In private life and public service he was honored and loved by all who knew him. Honest, faithful, tried and true, with a charity born of a belief in the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of all, he lived, labored and passed to his reward, leaving behind him a record worthy of pride and justly to be held in loving memory by his family and by his State.

Therefore, Be It Resolved, That in his death we have lost a loyal citizen, an honorable servant of the State and one whose life is worthy of exemplification by us whose duty it is to faithfully carry on the duties which are now ours and that we hereby extend to his relatives and friends this tribute of our respect; and be it further

Resolved, That these resolutions in memorium be printed in the journal of the House and that the Chief Clerk be directed to forward an engrossed copy to the family of the deceased.

W. E. Giltner,

C. V. Findlay,

W. W. Epps.