in the story. came here to st. louis and lived here. he lived many other places. 1790'sborn in the late in virginia. he was born as a slave on a plantation owned by a family named below. they moved to alabama and they took dred scott with them and tried to make a go of it there on another plantation which failed. and moved to st. louis bought a hotel and tried to do a different type of work to try to make their living. that they needed some ready cash and so they sold dred scott after they arrived here in st. louis in 1830. dred was purchased by a man named dr. john emerson who was a

physician who was working with the u.s. army. posted in many different places. two of them are the things that actually resulted in the suit. one was fort armstrong, which is in the state of illinois which was not supposed to have slavery. up in the territory of wisconsin. fort snelling. rick scott was taken to these places as a slave, held in slavery there even though slavery was technically illegal in those places and then brought back to st. louis. while he was at fort snelling, he met a woman named harriet robinson who was enslaved when other officer at the fort. dr. emerson actually purchased to and allowed the scott's

marry legally. which was a rare thing at the time. scott returnedt to st. louis. they had two children, both daughters. emersontime, dr. passed away. was asked by the scots if they could purchase their freedom from her. it was something that was not that unusual. she refused. she was not interested in selling the scott family. they decided based on the fact they had been taken to free territory and held as slaves and were still being held and bonded to sue for their freedom. they entered this courthouse in 1846. each had their own petition. it was not as though it was a joint anchored it was not just

dred. who hadred and harriet separate petitions for their freedom based on slightly different circumstances. to case first came trial in this courtroom. there was hearsay introduced. they actually lost the first trial. they asked for another trial, which the judge granted. in 1850, they came back and did the whole thing over again. they were able to present the evidence successfully and the decidedall white males that dred and harriet scott should be free. the verdict that was rendered in this building was to give them their freedom. but mrs. emerson obviously did not agree and she appealed that decision to the state supreme court which had

become very politicized by 1852. they rendered their verdict and the slavery issue was heating up all over the nation. the justices on the state supreme court -- there were three of them. two of them were slave owners. ofy believed the trend jurisprudence in missouri had been to free slaves that had been taken to free territory. they thought that was wrong. they thought slaves were property and to take a person's property away just as a person had taken it to a certain area of the country was not a fair thing to do under the law. bench --ged from the whatlegislated changing the legal system had been saying up until that point in time in missouri.

they were basically saying that the scots would be returned to slavery. an attorney named roswell fields the along and talked to scots about another strategy. he felt they could take their case to the federal district court in st. louis because mrs. a man inad remarried massachusetts and she had transferred ownership of the scots from herself to her .rother, john stanford he was a resident of new york state at this time. the scots were being held in bondage by a man who lived in another state -- a free state to boot. he thought the strategy would be for they could sue stanford their freedom and take that to federal court. that is what they did and they lost in federal court, but they

appealed that case directly to the u.s. supreme court. that is the case that was heard by the supreme court in 1856 and again in 1857 when they actually rendered their decision. hiss interesting that name is on the case and he does not really come into it until 1854. he is the key player in that we know that they will be returned to slavery by the supreme court, but they were set in this room a couple of months later. state.d died in new york upon his death, the ownership of the scotts reverted to his sister and her husband who was from massachusetts. he was a member of congress at

this time. suddenly, he finds he is the owner of the most famous slaves in the united states. to divest himself of these slaves as quickly as he could before the press found out. actually solds he the scott family for a token dollar to one of the sons of the original family from the plantation where scott was born back in virginia. taylor brought them into this courtroom and set them free in 1857. they achieved the freedom they had fought so long to obtain while still provoking this incredibly important supreme court decision which led the country on the road to civil war which eventually freed all the slaves.

dred unfortunately did not live a very long after the decision was rendered. he died of tuberculosis in 1850 eight. only one year after the case was decided. his life lived on until 1876. she lived long enough to see freedom come along. share of their lives, the scots lived here in st. louis. they died here and are buried here. in many respects, we can say that the scott family were st. louisans. their case started and ended here. american history tv is live all day in gettysburg, pennsylvania for the civil war institute summer conference at gettysburg college.

the theme of the conference is the war in 1864. brooks simpson will speak on union general ulysses s. grant and the war in virginia in eight and 64. kelmanng that, ari describes the sand creek massacre of indians in 1864 in colorado territory by u.s. soldiers. while we wait, and a few more ,inutes for this conference another look at the history of st. louis, missouri. we are highlighting the history of the city all weekend.

>> in 2014, st. louis is celebrating two hundred 50 years of history. to commemorate the founding of the city, they history museum put together an exhibit 250.d t250 in we are standing in front of people 50 selection.

this section of the exhibit is the first one that visitors see when they come into the exhibit space. we put together the people had an -- everybody certain person they had in mind. setting it up with the idea of people really use a strong starting point to talk about moments. some of them are st. louis natives. some are people who came to st. louis and exciting things. some are people who later on wanted nothing to do with st. louis, but happened to be from here. one of my personal favorites is ds.es eave he taught himself how to calculate structures. living byly made his inventing a steamboat salvaging machine. steamboats would be wrecked all

the time and he would go down and salvage the pieces from these and sell them. these bridges were significant because it was the longest arch bridge in the world. people were terrified of it. they really did not have a lot of faith in it. today, we think steel is very strong. they thought it was ready to fall over at any time under its own weight. ads was really impressive to me because of the national story is so did with him and the fact that he taught himself how to be an engineer. gerty cori came from frog. her husband got a job -- came from praug. how like a gint

is absorbed by the body and they won the nobel prize. she became the first american woman to ever win the nobel prize. when people think about ragtime, st. louis has a close connection with ragtime because of scott joplin. thomas turbine is the man we chose for the exhibit. he is the man who came before scott joplin. turpin started publishing ragtime music in the 1890's. he opened a saloon here in st. louis called the rosebud café. it is where any ragtime player came to test his mettle against other ragtimers.

the other story is the story of african-american entrepreneurs who basically -- you both think of african-americans as having to lay by the white person's rules in the 1800s. these were african-american entrepreneurs who set up their own business for blacks, by blacks and found ways to make money and started this whole series of businesses within the african-american community. we hear about the race issues in st. louis, but there was a lot of creativ things coming out of the african-american community. of the people of selections have objects associated with them. ones --the interesting one of chuck berry's guitars.

charles lindbergh's flight suit is very popular with museum visitors. he is a popular symbol in the city. one of the interesting features we decided to add in was that visitors could choose the 51st person and each month, we will put up whoever gets the most votes. scott joplin or miles davis. people can vote for louis -- sct joplin or miles davis. them and weote for will feature them for one month, and then on to whoever they vote for next. >> we are returning now to our live coverage of the civil war conference in gettysburg, pennsylvania. the theme, in keeping with the