Winfield Scott, Scottsdale's founder, was a minister, Civil War hero, member of the Territorial House of Representatives, and Chancellor of the University of Arizona who promoted the dusty desert east of Phoenix. Known as "the fighting Parson," he was born Feb. 26, 1837, in West Novi, Michigan. His wife, Helen Louise Brown, was born Feb. 8, 1838, in New York, and they married Dec. 13, 1861, the day he graduated from Rochester Seminary School. In 1862 Captain Scott organized Company C of the 126th New York Volunteer Infantry to fight with the Union Army in the battles of Harper's Ferry, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. For the next two decades he served as a Baptist missionary and preacher in the West, then in 1882 returned to the Army as chaplain. After visiting the Valley and envisioning land where citrus could be grown, in 1888 he purchased 640 acres of desert east of Scottsdale Road and north of Indian School Road. In 1893 he retired with his Army mule, "Old Maud," a veteran of the Apache campaigns. Scott died in 1910 at age 73, and Helen died in 1931 at age 93.