Maria DeHart (Mayo) Scott (1789-1862)

She was said to be one of the most remarkable ladies of her time, celebrated for her "personal comeliness and mental endowments" she long occupied a prominent position in Richmond Society. In Mordecai's Richmond in Bygone Days it says that she made her home ("The Hermitage") "anything but a hermitage. She was a great beauty, wrote and repeated poetry charmingly, sang and played the harp exquisitely, and was so fascinating in manner and agreeable in conversation that she is said to have rejected over one hundred suitors before accepting General Winfield Scott, then in the full glory of his military successes, to whom she was married at Bellville on the evening of March 11, 1817. The festivities were of the most extended and hospitable character, and, as an old letter before us expresses it, "there were splendid doings". It is said that Scott courted Maria Mayo as Mr. Scott, as Captain Scott, and as Colonel Scott without success, but as General Scott, the hero of Lundy's Lane, he carried off the coveted prize." They had seven children (listed), but only their three youngest daughters married and had families.