On June 6, 1871 in the bride's home in Sterling, Samuel Scott was married to ANNA MARGARET TRESSLER (Sept. 6, 1850-Feb. 12, 1922) by her brother, the Rev. David Loy Tressler, assisted by the Rev. D. Smith and the Rev. W. A. Sipe.
Anna Tressler was born in Loysville, Pa., thirteenth child of Col. John and Elizabeth Loy Tressler, respectively of German and of French descent. Colonel Tressler founded Loysville Academy; it later became a Soldiers' Orphans' Home and is now The Tressler Lutheran Home for Children.
Anna taught in the Orphans' Home after her graduation from Susquehanna Female College at Selingsgrove, Pa. Essays by her at 16 years of age on The Golden Rule, The Cross, The Eloquence of Decay, and Mother, reveal rare apperception and literary skill.

Samuel and Anna Scott made their first home in Ottawa, then spent about two years in Bloomington and returned to Ottawa in 1873. In April 1887 with their three children they moved to Salina, Kansas; here Mr. Scott and his wife's brother, Dr. Luther Tressler, opened The Citizens Bank; successive years of severe drought brought Hard Times; the Bank went into voluntary liquidation in 1891 and paid its depositors in full. The family returned to Ottawa, Illinois where Samuel Scott took over the dry goods business and residence of his brother John, who then joined their older brothers in Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. in Chicago; Samuel retired in 1902. Mr. and Mrs. Scott spent 1903-4 in Europe and the Near East and then a year or two in California, being in the San Francisco area in the great earthquake and fire. In 1906 they purchased the former Tressler and Loy farms at Loysville, naming their home "Trescott Farm." Thereafter they usually spent summers there and winters in the South. Engaging in many religious and charitable, cultural and social activities, and entertaining all sorts of persons and groups young and old, Samuel and Anna
Scott always led busy lives. He was a Presbyterian elder (ordained in his twenties in Mendota), Sunday School Superintendent and teacher, on Illinois Synod's Committee for Colleges, Commissioner at General Assembly, and in various business, civic and general Associations. The family always had good horses and often drove to scenic spots for picnics, at 8 m.p.h.
As the writer well recalls his mother's
activities (occasionally too many) and as they illustrate some features of life in that era, a number of them are detailed here. She initiated and directed "The Illinois State Testimonial to Mrs. President Hayes" for excluding intoxicating beverages from the White House. To promote religious and missionary interest, Mrs. Scott organized
The Gospel Extension Library (1000 books in 20 small, book-case trunks), which circulated in rotation among church, Sunday School, College, "Y" and other libraries), and developed "The Christmas Star," hundreds of thousands of which were used by leading denominations to encourage gifts to Foreign Missions at Christmas; missionary barrels from her society were packed with new material only. From Lyceum Bureaus she brought lecturers (like Henry Ward Beecher $500, Wendell Phillips $150, or Russell Conwell with "Acres of Diamonds") who filled the largest Ottawa church (Baptist) as did also a mass meeting for Armenian Relief about 1893 when Mr. Scott presided. Spelling Bees, evenings of music, elocution, and/or pageantry were held; in vogue were painting in oils on china, on leather or on metal, and needle-work of many eye-straining kinds. Mrs. Scott's Saturday Morning Industrial School in the S.S. rooms taught boys and girls useful handicrafts and homemaking. She was an
early and ardent promoter of The Home Department of Sunday Schools, writing and speaking widely for it and for Personal Bible Study which was probably her deepest enthusiasm. Resolutions by organizations and editorials in the Press show the high esteem in which the couple were held.

Samuel Swan Scott died in his 76th year at Galen Hall, Wernersville, Pa., and Mrs. Anna Tressler Scott in her 72nd year at Yonkers, New York. Both are interred in the Scott plot in Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago; the services were conducted by the Rev. Dr. James G. K. McClure, President of McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago.
In loving memory of them, their children reconstructed Scott Hall in the Ottawa Presbyterian Church and their daughter Vera provided memorial endowments, for father at Hampton Institute, Va., and for mother at Tressler Lutheran Home for Children, Loysville, Pa. They had three children, Arthur, Vera and George who are mentioned in the next chapter.

From "The family of Thomas Scott and Martha Swan Scott: a century in America, 1856-1956: a sketch by a grandson" by George Tressler Scott [For Complimentary Distribution Only Privately Printed]
A copy may be obtained on request of the Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, Illinois.