Samuel Mansfield Bay

One of Samuel and Elizabeth Mansfield’s daughters, Harriet, married prominent Claverack lawyer, John Bay, with whom she had eight children. This notice from the Hudson Weekly Gazette is of a land transaction by Bay.

Samuel Mansfield Bay, the son of Harriet and John, went on to become Missouri Attorney General from 1839-1845.

Samuel Mansfield Bay, 
Missouri State Archives

Bay defended Dred Scott in the 1847 Scott vs. Emerson case at the Missouri State Circuit Court level. Dred Scott and his wife Harriet sued for their freedom and that of their two children, claiming that because they had lived for four years in the territory of Wisconsin, in which slavery was illegal, they were free. The case went on to the Supreme Court in 1857. Deciding against Scott, the Court’s decision was a blow to the anti-slavery movement in the country. The Court decreed that slavery was legal in United States territories, black people had no right to citizenship, and that the Missouri Compromise, which declared all territory west of the Missouri free from slavery, was unconstitutional.