Family papers of school master Theodore Scott (1805-1877); his daughter Saida Scott Palmer, a music teacher; her husband, Jewett Palmer, Civil War officer, local Republican official, and mayor of Marietta; and his daughters, Winifred and Muriel, a concert contralto. Includes correspondence, letter books, diaries, school registers and reports, scrapbooks, genealogical records, and theatre and opera programs.

Topics include Scott's teaching career at Portsmouth, Ohio (1836); Marietta, Ohio, and the Western Liberal Institute (1838-1872); and Williamstown, West Virginia (1872-1875). Additional topics include the Marietta Universalist Society; temperance; the effect of the secession crisis on New York financial interests; General Dumont's fight with John Hunt Morgan in 1862; Republican politics in Ohio, 1874-1890; civil service reform; veterans' affairs of the 36th Ohio Volunteer Infantry; and the musical career of Muriel Palmer and social life in Now York, 1888-1890, as reflected in her letters to her family.

Correspondents include Leonard Scott, G. T. Flanders, and Achille Errani. Jewett Palmer's copy book, kept while he was Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue at Marietta, contains letters to Rutherford B. Hayes, William McKinley, Nathan Goff, Rufus R. Dawes, and Nelson Holmes Van Voorhes.