Dred Scott, who was buried here after his death in 1858 and reinterred here in 1867, fought with his wife Harriet from April 6, 1846, in an eleven-year legal battle to free their family that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court's March 6, 1857 decision in Dred Scott v John F.A. Sandford. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared that Scott was not a citizen and could not sue in court, in a ruling remembered here as the worst ever rendered by the Court. The decision became a national catalyst for the U.S. Civil War, helped persuade Abraham Lincoln to continue his political service, and was followed by the North's victory and the end of slavery, ratified by the 13th Amendment; the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are presented here as direct results of the decision. The Scott family was freed by Taylor Blow, son of Scott's original owner, who bought the family for $2.00 from abolitionist Dr. Calvin Chaffee and his wife Irene in order to free them. Harriet Robinson Scott, circa 1820 to June 17, 1876, was co-plaintiff in the case, and her daughters Eliza and Lizzie are buried in Greenwood Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. Gates W. Madison, born January 29, 1862, the first grandchild of the Scotts and the first of six children born to Eliza and Wilson Madison, was interred with his grandfather after his death on August 1, 1863. After Scott lay in an unmarked grave for 90 years, Fr. Edward Dowling rediscovered his burial site, and in 1957 the granddaughter of Taylor Blow, Mrs. Harrison of Pennsylvania, donated his original headstone.
