On the 60th Anniversary of the Assassination of President Kennedy

The Tragedy Reflected in an Original Pelham Image 

When it seemed the country's heart could not break further, film footage of three-year-old John-John Kennedy saluting the cortege carrying his father's flag-draped coffin did just that.  UPI photographer Stan Stearns captured the image in a photograph, which made it to the cover of Life magazine December 6, 1963.  Pelhamite Edward A. Scott painted his own rendition of that famous moment, which was printed in the Pelham Sun December 12th.  The original painted image is in the Pelham Town Historian Collection.

The assassination of a sitting United States President brought horror and sorrow to Pelham as it did to the entire nation.  The town went into mourning and unifying statements of grief and sympathy were issued by the Republican mayors of all (then) three of the villages, Mayor Joe Trotta of North Pelham, Mayor Laurence Fairfax of Pelham (Heights), and Mayor John Mulvey of Pelham Manor.

Edward A. Scott Jr. (1898-1988), who painted the image of John-John, was a man of many talents and achievements.  He was a resident of Pelham at 475 Wolfs Lane for more than 40 years.

Mr. Scott was born in 1901 in New York City and attended New Rochelle public schools.  He graduated from Fordham University and Fordham Law School, and practiced law in Manhattan primarily in the entertainment industry, representing such clients as Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford, and the "Keystone Kops." He also served as the town's (then called) "Justice of the Peace' (later "Town Justice") (1944-1976), as the first Pelham Manor Court Judge (1948-1976), and as a County Magistrate.  He taught at Fordham and NYU Law Schools.  But Scott was not only a lawyer and a judge; he also had a passion for drawing, working at one time in the studio of the famous American illustrator, Norman Rockwell.  He kept on drawing as a hobby, doing cartoons of the legal profession, a book of which were published under the title Recess.

Scott's artistic talent also led him to acting.  He played the part of a judge in a CBS semi-reality TV series called "The Verdict is Yours" (which ran from 1957 to 1962) and in several 1960s TV soap operas.

He was an avid golfer, and active in the Pelham community as a member of the Pelham Rotary Club and Huguenot Memorial Church.