David B. Scott was born in June 6, 1825. [1] His father Henry Scott was born in Ireland and mother Eleanor Bell Scott was native of Scotland. They had both immigrated to America early in life. Henry was a shoemaker and farmer at Scotchtown. Eleanor died around 1833 when David and his brothers James and John were very young. At the age of 13 years, James was sent to Goshen where he lived with Henry Denton. Their father, Henry Scott, died not long after at the age of forty. [2]

In 1843 David’s brother James had moved to Montgomery and began his apprenticeship in the shoemaker’s trade under Abram Conklin. He later opened a shop of his own, and carried on a profitable shoe business for twenty years. He married Miss Netti R. Welsh of Montgomery in 1861. From about 1868 to 1876 he operated a grocery store. He died December 22, 1905. The other brother, John, had settled in Smithville, Indiana and never returned to the old homestead. [3]

David was a member of the Scotchtown Presbyterian Church for forty years and its sexton for the greater part of that period. [4] According to the recollections of Charles Alex Comfort, David mowed the cemetery once or twice a year, dug graves, helped farmers butcher and was janitor of the church. He remembers Mr. Scott entertaining children after services by catching a handful of wasps and releasing them one by one. “He claimed they never stung him,” remembers Comfort, “but his hands were heavily calloused.”

There is a monument in the old Scotchtown burial ground to “Catherine W., wife of David B. Scott,” who died in July of 1875 at the age of 45 years and 3 days. She was his first wife and most likely the mother of his children. David was married again in Middletown to Miss Jane Dunlap of that place on June 14, 1876 by Rev. Frank Fletcher. [5] The house in Scotchtown where they lived in their later years can be seen on a 1903 map of the Town of Wallkill. [6] Mr. Comfort believed that he later sold the house to pay off a doctor bill. David B. Scott died on September 28, 1909 at the age of 84 years. He was survived by his widow, Miss Jane Dunlop, and two sons, James E. Scott of Middletown and William H. Scott of Purchase, NY. [7]