When Zaharias was only four years of age, some type of scourge, whether it was an infection or food poisoning is not known, killed everyone in the family except this young son, who was left without any surviving Virginia relative. Because there was no kin in the area, neighbors took the young son into their homes and cared for him until they located a party of immigrants organizing themselves into a wagon train. The train was to move westward into new territory as the Spanish and the French were negotiating to dispose of their lands to the American government. This was to be a vast covered wagon convoy and dates had been set for departure. It was known to the neighbors that a much older half-brother by the name of William Scott, had moved from Virginia to South Carolina, and later had joined the flotilla of Richard Curtis to explore and settle the area just north of Natchez, MS. The neighbors talked this convoy of immigrants into taking the four-year-old boy with them in hope they would cross the Big Black River going westward at Vernon, MS, across Scotts Ferry, and leave this boy with his older half-brother, where they would normally pass as they preceded to Vicksburg on the MS and points west. The leaders of the travel party agreed to the proposal, and word was sent to William Scott that his half-brother, whom he had never seen, would be arriving during a certain month, with the objective that he could be intercepted at the ferry as the travel party moved toward the west. William assigned a slave to stay at the ferry during the entire month the immigrants were scheduled to pass that way. The slave persevered and the last time the travel party saw the young boy, it was reported that he was in a flatboat being paddled upstream by the slave to William's plantation.

Zacharias therefore was reared in a very fortunate situation of privilege and wealth. Having no children of his own, William adopted Zacharias as his own son so he could inherit the plantation and wealth. Because the young boy had a very compassionate heart and a scientific mind, William thought he would make a fine doctor. At the appropriate time, therefore, he sent him by river boats up the MS River and the Ohio to the University of Louisville Medical School, where he apparently met Martha Evelyn Scott of Trigg County, Kentucky, for the first time. She was a distant cousin of his.

Zacharias had intended to return home to practice medicine but the Civil War intervened. He found himself serving as a First Lieutenant Surgeon, K/F-S, 26th MS Regiment, Infantry (the "K" is his original company, the Dixie Guards, from Copiah County, the F-S is Field and Staff) the "Gallant Mississippi 36^th," whose service included the siege of Vicksburg under Lee.

In the mean time, the Yankees moved from all sides toward Vicksburg for the memorable siege and battle of Vicksburg. It was then that the plantation of William Scott Jr. was commandeered, the buildings confiscated, and William Scott apparently killed and buried somewhere on the grounds without a monument. When Zacharias returned at the end of the Civil War he found his inheritance gone and the lands confiscated and placed in the hands of the Carpetbaggers who had taken over the South, he saw that there was no need to file a claim against the property so confiscated. Being stopped from "possessing his possessions," Zacharias moved south of the East-West Highway to Vicksburg and homesteaded land east of Crystal Springs, MS, where he started out all over again. This time it was more at a point of poverty and deprivation rather than wealth and privilege. because of his medical skills, however, and the need for health services in the area, he was soon busier than ever. He was a typical country doctor making his calls on his patients at their homes. He had a farm 12 miles west of Crystal Springs, Miss., which included a small office in the front room. It had a door that opened onto the porch and patients would come and sit on the porch waiting to be seen. The farm was operated by an overseer as he practiced medicine. Zacharia was in a position of tremendous influence as a citizen and religious leader. The New Zion Church, one of Mississippi's oldest, found him and his family the backbone of the congregation, the ones who contributed liberally and deliberately in money and time to help Mississippi become a state and also to help it become a predominantly Baptist state. He is buried along with his wife and several of their children in the New Zion Baptist Church Cemetery, just west of Crystal Springs, MS. 

Research and compliled by James L. Sullivan, "The Scott Heritage in America (Velma Scott Sullivan's People)." 

The 11th of 12 children.

Family story: Zacharias and three of his brothers were in the Civil War. After the war they had to come overland to get back home. There were newly free blacks about so the boys hid in the woods, then scattered to be safer. They rendezvous the next day. One boy never came back. They never new what ever happened to him. His wife waited in vain by the side of the road.