William Lawrence Scott

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William Lawrence Scott (July 2, 1828–September 19, 1891) was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

William L. Scott (grandson of Gustavus Scott) was born in Washington, D.C. He attended the common schools and Hampden-Sidney Academy in Virginia. He served as a United States House of Representatives Page from 1840 to 1846.

He moved to Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1846 and was employed as a shipping clerk until 1850. He was subsequently engaged in shipping, coal mining, iron manufacturing, banking, and railroad construction. He had extensive land holdings and was interested in the raising of cattle. Scott was elected mayor of Erie in 1866 and again in 1871. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1866 and in 1876. He was elected a member of the Democratic National Committee in 1876, 1880, and 1884, and was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1876, 1880, and 1888.

Scott elected as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses. He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy during the Fiftieth Congress. He was renominated in 1888 and again in 1890 but each time declined to be a candidate because of the condition of his health. He served as director in a number of railroad companies and was president of the Erie & Pittsburgh Railroad at the time of his death in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1891. Interment in Erie Cemetery.

[edit] Sources

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• The Political Graveyard

Preceded by Samuel M. Brainerd

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 27th congressional district 1885 - 1889

Succeeded by Lewis F. Watson