Kentucky. Governor (1808-1812 : Scott)

Charles Scott, Kentucky's fourth governor, served from 1808 to 1812. He was affiliated with the Jeffersonian Republicans.

Born in Virginia in 1739, Charles Scott began his military career in 1775. During the American Revolution, he became brigadier general of the Continental Army in of 1777. He served with General George Washington at Valley Forge, was taken as a prisoner of war in Charleston when the Americans surrendered, and released in a prisoner exchange. He was breveted a major general in 1783.

Scott moved his family from Virginia and settled along the Kentucky River in 1785. He was elected in 1789 as the Woodford County delegate to the Virginia Assembly, but Indian attacks on Kentucky settlers caused him to again assume a military role. Beginning in 1790, Scott commanded the Kentucky Mounted Volunteers against the Indians, and finally, put an end to the raids when he led 1500 Kentuckians into the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. When a new county was formed from Woodford County in 1792, it was named in honor of General Charles Scott.

With the Indian threat eliminated, he began to participate in civil government. He served for several years as a presidential elector and then ran for the governorship in 1808. His reputation as a Revolutionary War and Indian War hero won him the gubernatorial election with ease.

As Kentucky's fourth governor, he concentrated on improving the state's fiscal condition in order to prevent borrowing, and on military preparedness and military reorganization. When war was declared on Great Britain in 1812, Scott commissioned William Henry Harrison as brevet major general of the Kentucky Militia and reinforced the militia's number of men.

Scott died in October 1813 in Clark County, Kentucky. His remains were interred in Frankfort in 1854.

From the description of Subunit history. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 145416329