Walter Stott

STOTT

Posted By: Gordon Felland (email)
Date: 3/26/2008 at 21:45:37

Walter Stott was born in the town of Bovina, Delaware Co., N. Y., Oct. 2, 1825, and spent his boyhood, youth and early manhood with his parents on the farm; teaching school, however, during the winter months. On the 12th of March, 1850, he was married to Margaret Ladd. They came west in 1856, settling at Shell Rock, Freeborn Co., Minn., where he taught the first school in that county. He removed to Northwood during the year 1866, where he was for many years closely identified with the Church and every good work in behalf of religion and temperance. He was converted to the religion of Christ in his twenty-third year, and uniting with the Methodist Episcopal denomination, remained until the day of his death one of the most prominent men in that Church wherever he was located. In 1857, shortly after his settlement at Shell Rock, he received a license as a local preacher, and it was in that capacity that he first came into this county. For a score of years this good man preached the word of the Lord he loved so much and labored hard in the field of Christian endeavor. In 1872 Mr. Stott was ordained a deacon by Bishop Wiley at the Upper Iowa Conference, held at Vinton Benton county, and in that capacity he united about thirty-five happy couples in the holy bonds of matrimony and conducted the solemn rites at the funeral of many a loved member of the fireside circle. No matter what the hurry of business, the condition of weather or roads be always responded cheerfully to any call, and, with a tenderness that was almost womanly, soothed, the afflicted and bereaved. He was widely known, but as naught else than a most conscientious, God-fearing business man, a kind, good neighbor, a devoted husband and father, and an earnest working Christian. He was called from hence on the 14th of November, 1877, and went to inherit that reward of the good and the just in the kingdom "not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens." His last words were addressed to the loved friends who surrounded his bedside, and were: "Yes, yes, I am ready and willing; grace is sufficient; praise, praise His name." So sank a good man to rest. Of him one who knew him and loved him bears this testimony:
"He was positive, but genial; firm, but kind, and I think I never met a man that combined these two elements so perfectly. He was radical on all questions of right, and carried every undertaking to its complete victory, yet he scarcely, if at all, had an enemy; and the secret of it lies just here—all were impressed by every movement he made that he was a man of superior judgment and was conscientious.
"He was not what you might call a leader among men; a natural timidity and large cautiousness unfitted him for it, but he rose in his majesty to second your plan and to follow a leader in whom he had confidence. He was brave and fearless here, and carried to completion everything he began. He was too generous to accumulate a large amount of property, but yet he had enough to make him comfortable."

Source: History of Mitchell and Worth Counties, Iowa, 1883, page 671.