Scott, Orange

Scott, Orange, a noted Methodist preacher, was born in Brookfield, VT, Feb. 13, 1800, and up to his twentieth year had attended school but thirteen months. He was converted at a camp-meeting, in September, 1820, and immediately joined the Methodist Church. Next year he commenced preaching on Bernard Circuit, and in 1822 he was received into the New England Conference. His labors were crowned with abundant conversions, and he studied hard to make up the defects of his early education. In 1830 he was made presiding elder of Springfield district, and in 1834 of the Providence district. In 1832 he declined an offer to serve one of the wealthiest congregational churches in Rhode Island. The same year he was elected a delegate to the General Conference. About this time he became a controversial antislavery advocate, and in the General Conference of 1836 he carried through stringent resolutions on the subject. He subsequently labored with great success as pastor in Lowell and elsewhere. Being dissatisfied with the action of the General Conference of 1840 on the subject of slavery, he retired from the Church, and was largely influential in the formation of the Wesleyan Methodist Church (q.v.), of which he was the book-agent till his death, which occurred in great peace at Newark, N. J, July 31,1847.