The life of Elizabeth Scott is an open book and is still quite mysterious.

It’s not 100% clear when she was born, other than it was “probably” in 1708. Her personal life isn’t very well known, and her work as a hymnist is still a matter of speculation, since so many of her pieces didn’t have her name on them, for some reason. It’s only been through careful analysis of known pieces that we’ve been able to put her name to the unknown pieces. Many of her known works are in the hands of Yale College, and are in manuscript rather than print, so they date back to the 1740s. Most of them are signed simply “S” or “Scott” rather than “Elizabeth Scott,” but those pieces have had a good chain of custody that they can be considered authentic.

Interestingly, the plate that appears in today’s cover art is mounted into a grave table, which is a stone table (i.e. a table top and four legs with some opening between it and the ground) standing over her grave. The grave of her second husband is nearby, but it’s marked with a simple stone.

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