Elizabeth Scott

SCOTT, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Scott Williams Smith).  b. Hitchin, Hertfordshire, 17 October 1708; d. Wethersfield, Connecticut Colony, 13 June 1776. She was the writer of several hymns that were widely published in England and New England during the 18th and 19th centuries, all of which are included in a manuscript volume identified by a label on its binding (but not inside) by the words ‘Hymns and Poems by Elizabeth Scott’, preserved in the Beinecke Library of Yale University. It contains 90 hymns and poems that she transcribed. Her friends were permitted to copy them, and it was from their copies that her hymns were first published (see ‘Hymns and Poems by Elizabeth Scott*).  Elizabeth’s...