Background
Dr. William Anderson Scott. D.D., LLD. was born in Rock Creek, Tennessee, on January 31, 1813. He attended Cumberland College,
Ky., and graduated in 1833. He attended Princeton Theological Seminary in 1833-34. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity
degree from the University of Alabama in 1844, and an honorary Legum Doctor (Doctor of Laws) LL.D. degree from the University
of New York in 1872.
As minister he served the following: principal of the Female Academy in Winchester, Tennessee, 1838-1840; Hermitage Presbyterian
Church, 1835-1837, where Andrew Jackson was a member; First Presbyterian Church in New Orleans, 1842-1854; Calvary Presbyterian
Church in San Francisco, 1854-1861; Forty-Second Street Presbyterian Church in New York, 1863-1870; and then back to San
Francisco, St. John's Presbyterian Church, and as professor at SFTS until his death in 1885.
He conducted and edited the Pacific Expositor. He established and contributed to The Occident, which for many years was the
organ of the Presbyterian Church on the Pacific Coast. His books include The Christ of the Apostles Creed, The Voice of the
Church against Arianism, Strauss and Renan (1867), The Giant Judge (i.e. Samson, 1858), The Bible and Politics (1859), Esther,
The Hebrew-Persian Queen (1859), and Moses and the Pentateuch (1863). [C. M. Drury, William Anderson Scott: No Ordinary Man,
1967.]