In early life he became enamoured of learning, and commenced teaching a private school in the family mansion in the winter of 1840, when only seventeen years old, and continued to teach in the neighborhood until 1851, when he was appointed Clerk to the County Commissioners and removed to Elkton. Mr. Scott was a Democrat, and from early life took an active part in the politics of his native country. After serving as Clerk to the Commissioners for one term of two years, Mr. Scott started a general warehouse business at the Elkton depot, in which he continued as head of the firm of D. Scott & Bro. until the time of his death.
In 1867 he was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court for Cecil county, and served six years with great acceptability.
In 1876 Mr. Scott was appointed Chief Weigher, and continued to have charge of the State Cattle Scales in the city of Baltimore, until the time of his death.
In 1852 Mr. Scott was married to Miss Mary Jane Wilson, of Newark. They were the parents of three children, two of whom are now living. His first wife died in 1858, and he subsequently married Miss Annie Elizabeth Craig, who, with their four children, still survives him.
In early life Mr. Scott began to write poetry, and continued to write for the local newspapers under the nom de plume of “Anselmo,” and the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper during the time he was engaged in teaching school, and occasionally for the county papers until the close of his life.
For many years Mr. Scott enjoyed the friendship of the literati of Newark, Delaware, and was one of a large number of poetical writers who contributed to the columns of the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, with several of whom he enjoyed a personal acquaintance, and with several others of whom he carried on a literary correspondence for several years.
Mr. Scott, though not a voluminous writer, was the author of a considerable number of poems, all of which were of a highly intellectual character.
[The Forced Alliance.]
Can earthly commerce hush the music of the heart, and shut the door of memory on a friend?
—Miss Whittlesey.
Ah, that our natural wants and best affections
Should thus in fierce, unnatural conflict struggle!
Ah, that the spirit and its dear connections,
Whose derelictions merit such corrections,
Must bear the illicit smuggle!