Census Records

The following was extracted from the Southern Cook County and History of Blue Island before the Civil War by Ferdinand Schapper 1917 (Ref 977.31 SCH) (Blue Island Library)

Family Record

By Mrs. Minerva Shill

Leonard Hutton Scott was born at Abington, Washington County, Virginia, December 2nd, 1802, and while a youth moved, with his parents, to Salem, Indiana, where somewhat later he married Eliza Denny, eldest daughter of David and Harriet Denny of that place.

In the early thirties (about 1834) they came to Illinois and settled at Bachelors Grove on  two hundred acres of land, obtained from the government through the land office at Washington, D.C. Here they built their log cabin which, at this date, was twenty miles from the little town of Chicago, and here the seven children were born, which I will name according to their births.

• Maria Jane at the age of sixteen years, married Amon Rice.

• Emeline at the age of twenty married Henry Pettibone.

• Marietta at the age of twenty-one married Erastus Smith of Reading Illinois.

• Hannah Ann at twenty-two married John Goldsborough of Livingston County, Illinois.

• Elizabeth at seventeen married Robert Chritton of Ancona, Illinois.

• Minerva Frances at nineteen married John Shill of Saratoga County, N.Y. and an infant son who only survived a few weeks.

Eliza, wife of L.H. Scott, died November 1844 and was buried in what was then called the "Everdon" burying ground, as it was donated, or may have been sold by Mr. Everdon, who was located about a mile east of the Scott Place. This interment of my mother, if I am not mistaken, was the first burial on this ground.

L.H. Scott made the Grove his home for ten years after his wife's death, meantime serving the township and county as clerk and political leader and was known as "Squire" Scott among his friends.

In the year 1885 L.H. Scott came to Omaha, Nebraska, to remain with his youngest daughter Mrs. John Shill, the closing years of his life which were extended to his 86th birthday, on which he passed away, December 2nd, 1888 and was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, an environment of Omaha City, the burial spot of my family.