The story
Welcome to Scott Township
Scott Township, east of Angola, was part of York Township until March 1849. Its heavy timber kept settlers away at first, and it has never had a village of its own.
Scott Township was part of York until March 1849. For a few years after 1838 a strip two miles wide off its west side was attached to Pleasant Township, and in 1850 one mile from its east side went to York. As it stands it covers about thirty sections, all of congressional township 37 north, range 14 east except the eastern tier. Pigeon Creek flows north to south through the middle, and Pigeon Lake is in section 29.
Because of its very heavy timber the township was settled more slowly than its neighbors. John Van Horn made the first land entry on April 27, 1836, on sections 3, 4, 9 and 10, and David Phenicie the second. Elder Silas Headley and Daniel Hill came in 1836, and Hill built the first house; after them came John Wheland, Nathan Beckwith, Peter Wolf, Peter Magers, Justin Wait, Orlando Pattee, Philip B. Lobdell, the Suttons and others.
Read the full story
The first marriage was Roswell Sutton to Nancy McMinn about 1842. The only mill was built on Pigeon Creek and ran until about 1870. Mrs. Mahala Lobdell kept the first school in her own house, the first schoolhouse was built in 1844 in District No. 4, and Wellington Cook built the first frame house in 1850. Willard Dewitt, who died in January 1881 at nearly 105, was long the oldest person in the county.
In 1885 the railroad crossed section 2 diagonally. About 1907 the St. Joseph Valley Railroad was built east to section 26, on the York line, where its promoter, Mr. Bucklin, put up a two-story stone building and a storeroom for machinery; the road was dismantled after his death. Drainage has since turned much of the old wet land into farms. The 2020 census counted 1,197 people in the township.