Amos Westcott

Amos Westcott (April 28, 1815 –July 6, 1873) was an American dentist who served as Mayor of Syracuse, New York, in 1860.

Amos attended local schools but, according to a profile in the 1910 History of Dental Surgery, "as a boy manifested a desire to obtain an education beyond the ability of his parents to provide."

As a result, Westcott began teaching district school during the winter in Delphi in Onondaga County, and during the summer attending an academy in Truxton, New York.

Westcott was involved in founding the New York College of Dental Science in 1852, where he was dean and a professor before it burned down and closed in 1855.

[3] Nine years later he was a member of a consortium that purchased the Cardiff Giant, an archeological hoax, and displayed it in Syracuse.