Robert C.L. Scott

Robert Charles Lewis Scott, 90, professor emeritus of history at Williams College, died of natural causes on Saturday, June 21, 2003, at the Kimball Farms Nursing Center in Lenox.
Mr. Scott began his career at Williams in 1946, when he was appointed assistant professor of history. He retired in 1978 after 32 years at Williams, where for several years he continued to teach a course.
Within his first three years at Williams, he was made associate professor and later he became a full tenured professor. He was named the J. Leland Miller Professor of American History, Literature and Eloquence, a professorship at Williams that dates back to the 1880s.
Mr. Scott also served as dean of freshman, and in 1954 and 1955, was dean of the college. Starting as acting chairman of the History Department, 1955-57, he assumed the chairmanship in 1958, a position he held until 1968.
Mr. Scott successfully advocated abolishing fraternities at Williams, feeling they were too exclusive and divisive. He also strongly supported accepting women at Williams.
The first year he had a woman in his class, Mr. Scott said, “The performance and attention of the young men has never been better.”
Born on March 15, 1913, in St. Paul, Minn., he was the son of Charles Lewis and Helen (Patterson) Scott. In 1927, at the age of 15, he went to college preparatory school at Phillips Academy at Andover, where he graduated in 1931. He then attended Yale University, receiving a bachelor of arts in 1935 where he later received his doctorate in history in 1940.
Starting two years before his doctorate and continuing for two years following his degree, he taught history as an instructor and fellow at Yale.
Through a friend and fellow graduate student, Fenton Keyes, he met his future wife, Fenton’s sister, Joan Keyes. She was a student at Yale Law School, one of the few women at that time. They were married two years later on Dec. 19, 1942. His wife died in 1986 after 44 years of marriage.
In the summer of 1942, he took an opportunity to become a first lieutenant at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he taught American history, 1942-46. He left West Point a major.
In 1990, Mr. Scott and his terrier, Puck, moved to Kimball Farms, where he served as the first president of the Kimball Farms Residents Association. Each year until about a year ago, he taught a popular history course to his fellow residents. In 1996, The New York Times did a story on him, “Retired Professor Teaches History to Those Who Lived It.”
He was also heir to those who made American history, though he rarely spoke of it. He was a distant cousin to President James Madison and two of his great-great-uncles were the first two governors of Kentucky. His direct relatives served as officers in the Revolutionary War and in the War of 1812.
When California joined the Union, one of its first U.S. Congressmen was his great-grandfather. Mr. Scott’s father was the last general in charge of the U.S. Calvary and the first in charge of the Army U.S. Mechanized Division, and later commandant at Fort Knox, where he entertained President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
While his relatives fought wars, Mr. Scott ruled with words. He most loved teaching, whether his students were freshman at Williams or contemporaries at Kimball Farms. At his apartment at Kimball Farms, he had a long bookshelf filled with books written by past students and colleagues.
Williams College has had for several years the Robert C. L. Scott Fund, which is used to help a student cover costs in writing a senior thesis, for a prize for the best senior thesis in American or European history, and as an award for a student going on to graduate school in American or European History.
Mr. Scott leaves a daughter, the Rev. Dr. Bonnie Scott Jelinek, and her husband, Richard, of Wellesley, and a son, Charles Lewis Scott, II and his wife, Judith, of South Burlington, Vt., and Washington, D.C. He also leaves eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

FUNERAL NOTICE -- A graveside service for Mr. Scott will be Friday, June 27, 1 p.m., at the Williams College Cemetery on Lynde Lane in Williamstown. A memorial service will be held at the Williams College Chapel in the fall.
In lieu of flowers, his family asks that contributions be made to the Scott Fund, Williams College, 75 Park St., Williamstown, Mass. 01267.
The George M. Hopkins Funeral Home, 61-67 Spring St., Williamstown, is in charge of arrangements.