Levi Scott (Oregon politician)

Levi Scott was born on February 8, 1797, in what would become the state of Illinois.[1] He was married and had two children, and by 1844, he had moved to Iowa and was living in Burlington.[1] In May 1844, Levi and his son John Scott (b. 1828) immigrated to what was then Oregon Country and settled near Dallas, Oregon.[1][2]

In 1846, Scott, along with his son, as well as Jesse Applegate, Lindsay Applegate and others, set off to create a southern route into the Willamette Valley.[2] The route authorized by the Provisional Government of Oregon[3] would travel southwest from Fort Hall and cross the Rogue Valley and Umpqua Valley before turning north to the Willamette Valley settlements.[1] This Southern Route has become known as the Applegate Trail.[1]

During the Cayuse War Scott was made a captain and was responsible for sending dispatches for the Provisional Government south to California.[1] Following his involvement in the war, he settled in 1848 along Elm Creek in Douglas County, Oregon, with the valley named Scotts Valley in his honor.[1] In 1850, Scott founded Scottsburg along the Umpqua River.[1] Mount Scott in Crater Lake National Park in Southern Oregon is also named after Levi.[1]

Scott then entered the political field when he was elected to the Oregon Territorial Legislature in 1852.[4] He represented three southern counties, Umpqua, Douglas and Jackson as a Whig in the upper chamber Council.[5] Scott won re-election twice, serving through the 1854-55 session.[6] He returned to politics briefly in 1857 as a delegate to the Oregon Constitutional Convention.[7] Scott represented Umpqua County as an Anti-Democrat.[7]

He died in Malheur County, Oregon, in the Southeastern part of the state on April 21, 1890.[1] In addition to the town, valley, and mountain named after him, Scott Mountain in Douglas County is also named after Levi.[7]

• Wagons to the Willamette: Captain Levi Scott and the Southern Route to Oregon, 1844-1847 by Levi Scott and James Layton Collins, edited by Stafford J. Hazelett, 2015, Washington State University Press (memoir in modern edition)