onel Thompson, they drove back a British landing party at Lechmere Point, and the gallant colonel was commissioned a Brigadier-General March 1st, 1776.

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One of the grandsons of William and Betsy Thompson was Matthew T. Scott Sr., who with two brothers emigrated from Pennsylvania Kentucky, in the early history of that State. One of the brothers was Dr. Joseph Scott, long a prominent citizen of Lexington, Kentucky, and the other Dr. John Scott, was the confidential friend and member of the staff of General William Henry Harrison, in honor of whom the latter named his son Scott Harrison, the father of President Benjamin Harrison. Dr. Scott also named his eldest son after General Harrison, and Dr. Harrison Scott became in later years one of the leading physicians of Illinois.

Matthew T. Scott, upon his removal to Kentucky, became prominently identified with the development of the State, and was recognized during his active life as one of its most distinguished financiers. He became connected with the Northern Bank of Kentucky at its organization and was for thirty years the executive head of that great financial institution, the business of which extended over a wide area of territory. Through the many monetary panics incident to the period of its existence, this bank passed, under the management of Matthew T. Scott, without

ever suspending specie payment, or omitting its regular dividend of eight per cent. The wife of Mr. Scott was a daughter of Isaac Webb, who came of one of the old Virginia families, and who settled near Lexington, Kentucky, at an early date. Mrs. Scott was a sister of Dr. James Webb, father of Lucy Webb, who became distinguished as the wife of Rutherford B. Hayes, nineteenth president of the United States, and one of the noblest of American women.

Of this parentage came Matthew T. Scott, whose prominence as a pioneer and citizen of Illinois entitles him to a place among the historical personages of the State. In Lexing ton, Kentucky, his birthplace, he received his early educational training. The environments of his youth were such as contributed in the greatest degree to the development of high character, intellectual vigor and true manhood. Lexington was then more noted perhaps than any city west of the Allegheny mountains as a center of wealth, culture and refinement, and, as the home of Henry Clay, was not less prominent as a political Mecca. The stimulus of these environments could not fail to affect even a less susceptible youth than Matthew T. Scott, and in his case, new virtues were added to those which came to

him as a rightful heritage from worthy ancestors. After receiving his preparatory training at Lexington, he was sent to Centre College, at Danville, Kentucky, where he grad

uated with college honors in 1846, when but eighteen years of age.

A year after his graduation he was. sent to Ohio by his father to assume the management of a large landed estate in which he was given an interest. He remained there several years managing the interests committed to his charge with success, and developing meantime the keen foresight and business sagacity which made him a conspicuous figure in the greatest of western States in later years. While living in Ohio and giving his attention largely to the management of his affairs there, the range of his vision was by no means confined to the territory in which his farming operations were carried on. He was familiar with the history of the Illinois country, and had made explorations which convinced him that the young State of Illinois would, in the near future, develop into one of the great commonwealths of the United States. Feeling that the time had come to begin development of the latent resources of this vast section of country, he made for himself and members of his family large investments in Illinois and Iowa lands, which were purchased in the main from the government, and hence were devoid of any kind of improvements.

The lands thus acquired were not held for speculative purposes, but with an energy and tenacity of purpose which were among his distinguishing characteristics, he proceeded

as rapidly as possible to bring them under cultivation and convert them into productive farms. He thus inaugurated a system of improvements which was carried forward on a gigantic scale, and which had a vastly beneficial effect upon a broad area of territory. On one occasion in the later years of his life, when summing up, in conversation with a friend, the results of his labors in this field of industry, he estimated that he had brought under cultivation in Illinois and Iowa, sixteen thousand acres of prairie land, had made over two hundred and fifty miles of hedge fence, had put in over two hundred and fifty miles of ditches for drainage purposes, and had built on his lands nearly two hundred houses.

His first important enterprise in Illinois was the founding of the town of Chenoa, in 1856. Here he owned and cultivated a large tract of land, which was the first large farm in the State, cultivated without fences other than those used to confine his own stock. His successful experiments in farming, without going first to the expense of fencing the lands to be cultivated, and his testimony relative. to this matter before a legislative committee, led to the passage of the "No Fence Law" of Illinois, the effect of which was to increase largely the area of cultivated land, and to greatly facilitate the development of the agricultural resources of the State.

Mr. Scott believed that agriculture

must constitute the basis of all prosperity in the west, and that farming lands must inevitably become valuable possessions. It was natural, therefore, that he should extend his early investments as his fortune increased, but his acquisitions were always made with a view to develop ment and improvement. Like his ancestors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky, he was one of the builders of the commonwealth, a promotor of general prosperity, and a potent factor in the advancement of our civilization.

From his farm at Chenoa he removed to Springfield, Illinois, in 1870, and resided there until 1872, when he removed to Bloomington, where he purchased a beautiful home in which he spent the remaining years of his life. At Bloomington he became actively interested in promoting the growth and prosperity of the city and tributary country, and in various important business enterprises. He organized the McLean County Coal Company, and as president of this corporation during the remainder of his life, developed and built up another of the great industries of Central Illinois. A man of keen perceptions and great activity, of public spirit and sterling integrity, his aid was solicited for many enterprises set on foot by men of energy and business capacity, but lacking the substantial resources necessary to success. To these enterprises, so far as they seemed to him to be meritorious, he always extended substantial en

couragement, and thus he indirectly set in motion the wheels of industries with which he was not directly connected.

He was never a public man in the sense of being a public officeholder; nevertheless, he was was one of those men who exert without any apparent effort to do so, a most important influence on any community with. which they chance to be identified.

His influence was one which quickened into healthful action the social, moral and industrial pulse of the community, and thus contributed to its upbuilding. In politics Mr. Scott was a "Henry Clay " Whig, prior to the war. In the memorable presidential campaign of 1860, he supported the Bell and Everett "Constitutional Union" ticket, and was a strong advocate of the preservation of the Union through a compromise of the differences between the northern and southern States. Later he affiliated with the Democratic party, and in 1878 with others, founded the Bloomington Bulletin, a Democratic newspaper of which he subsequently became the sole proprietor, and which. he sold some years since to Hon. Owen Scott, now a representative in Congress from the Bloomington Congressional District.

"By inheritance and by conviction" says one who has written of Mr. Scott, "he was a Presbyterian. By instinct reverential, this instinct was cultivated by his early training and lifelong associations. A man of frank