A Short biography of Silvia Scott

By Virginia Smith

Sylvia Scott was a black woman, born into slavery in Virginia, sometime between 1750 and 1764. She died in Jerome Township, Union County, Ohio in March of 1860. We know this because one of her neighbors, Jas. H. Roney, was the census enumerator for the 1860 census and made this notation at the bottom of a page of the mortality schedule for that year:

“You will find one death registered that was one hundred & ten years old. The person was a colored lady having lived a remarkable temperate life & served as a slave for 60 years & had 7 children by her master hence the cause of her being liberated.”

In the 1850 census, she is listed as Silvey Scott in the Jerome Township as 86 years old. 

(If the age is accurate, she would have been 96 years old at the time of her death.) Living with her are seven other Scott family members.

“Silvy” is listed in both the 1830 and 1840 censuses living in Henrico County, Virginia, as a free colored person.

Most of the details of Sylvia’s life may never be discovered and the discrepancies concerning her age may not be resolved, but she must have come to Ohio between 1840 and 1850 as a freed citizen and gained the esteem of her neighbor, Jas. H. Roney.