Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/222

 186 of the state convention called to revise the constitution, and was chairman of the committee on schools. He resigned the presidency of the college not long after and retired to private life.

Scott, Robert Taylor, who at the time of his death was the attorney-general of Virginia, was born in Fauquier county, Virginia, in 1834, son of Robert Eden and Elizabeth (Taylor) Scott, his father a distinguished lawyer, and grandson of Judge John Scott, well known in the history of the state of Virginia, and of Robert L. Taylor, an eminent lawyer of Alexandria, Virginia. Robert Taylor Scott was educated in the public schools of Warrenton and Alexandria, in the private school of his father's house, and the University of Virginia, which he entered in 1851, and where he remained until 1854. He then settled in his native county, and became a successful lawyer; upon the outbreak of the civil war he joined the Confederate army, and organized a company of infantry; served as a captain in the famous brigade of Gen. Eppa Hunton, then was on the staff of Gen. Pickett: after the war was a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1867; was a member of the legislature of 1881; was nominated and elected attorney-general in 1888, reelected in 1893. During his incumbency the state had much trouble with the bondholders, and Mr. Scott was sent to jail by the Federal court for his fearless enforcement of the state laws called "Coupon Killers," designed to bring about a compromise of the state debt fastened upon the commonwealth by the "scallawags" and "carpet-baggers" just after the war. He was a member of the Episcopal church, and often represented that church in its diocesan councils. In 1858 he married Frances Carter, eldest daughter of Richard H. Carter, Esq., of Fauquier. He died August 5, 1897.

Fontaine, William Morris, born in Louisa county, Virginia, December 1, 1835, son of James Fontaine and Juliet Morris, his wife, and a descendant of the Rev. James Fontaine, a Huguenot refugee after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, whose son, the Rev. Peter Fontaine, came from England to the Virginia colony in 1715, and made his home in King William county. William Morris Fontaine was reared in the country, and his education was conducted under private tuition until he entered Hanover Academy in 1834 where he was under the personal instruction of Prof. Lewis Coleman, subsequently professor of Latin at the University of Virginia. In this institution he was prepared for entrance to the University of Virginia, at which he matriculated in 1856, and from which he graduated in the class of 1859 with the degree of Master of Arts. The following year he entered upon the duties of teaching at Hanover Academy, and remained there with Major Hilary P. Jones until the outbreak of the civil war, when he entered the Confederate army. Until 1862 he served as second lieutenant of artillery; during the next two years was second lieutenant of ordnance with Jones' battery of artillery; and from that time until the close of the war was first lieutenant of ordnance with Anderson's division at Petersburg, his service in the army ending at Appomattox, April 9, 1865. The observations he had made during the course of his military service determined him to follow scientific lines, and in pursuance of this idea