She sued for her own freedom based on having been held illegally as a child slave in the free state of Illinois.

In 1842, Polly sued for the freedom of her daughter Lucy Ann Berry, as the girl had legally been born to a free woman.

That case was argued by Edward Bates, the future United States Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln.

Wash was declared a free woman of color and received a freedom bond on September 26, 1843 and was allowed to reside in the state of Missouri.

[9][10] The Crocketts lived in a cabin near two other families, the John Woods and the Andrew Poseys, who all knew each other in Kentucky.

"[9][10] After 90 days in the state, slaveholders were required to register their slaves as indentured servants, which legally made them free.

[13] Concerned that Polly might be entitled to her freedom, Crockett's son, William, pressed him to continue on his journey to Missouri.

[3] At his father-in-law's request, David Beatty accompanied William on the trip to sell Polly in Little Dixie of central Missouri in April 1818.

[16] In 1824, Berry was tried and acquitted for charges of forgery and perjury by Abiel Leonard, the prosecuting attorney for the First Judicial District of Missouri in Howard County.

[17] By June 3, 1826, his widow, Frances (Fannie) Christy Berry married Robert Wash,[16][18] one of three Supreme Court of Missouri justices.

[21] Fannie's widower Robert Wash sold Polly's husband to a plantation in the Deep South.

[20] Mary Berry was married to Henry Sidney Coxe on March 21, 1837,[23] and Nancy was taken with them on their honeymoon trip, with a stop in Niagara Falls, New York.

[24] As the result of an argument, the Coxes decided to sell Polly at a slave auction on Main Street of St.

[26] Lucy remained a slave of Mary Berry and Henry Sidney Coxe, both of whom had "fiery personalities".

[26] Lucy went to Mary's younger sister, Martha, around the time that Polly filed her freedom suit.

She was believed to have been a wedding present when Martha married David D. Mitchell, who was a regional Superintendent for Indian Affairs.

[28] After being threatened to be sold in the Deep South, Lucy escaped to the cottage of her mother, who had her hide at a friend's house.

She was hired out to Elijah Haydon[16] (also spelled Hayden), a schoolmaster and reformer from Alton, Illinois who had settled in St.

Haydon allowed her freedom to move throughout St. Louis, and in April 1840 to Illinois, where Polly communicated with possible witnesses while the case languished in the Missouri courts.

[16] Four years after filing the suit, in the St. Louis Circuit Court, Polly Wash won her liberty and a single dollar in damages.

[4] On June 6, 1843, Polly Wash was declared a free woman by an all-white jury, on the basis of witnesses who testified she had been held as a slave in Illinois for months.

Her own case had not yet been tried, and as a slave she had no individual legal standing, but the law allowed her to file a suit on behalf of her minor daughter.

[16][27] Francis B. Murdoch, the former district attorney for Alton, Illinois, prepared the case to free Lucy.

Once free, Lucy would have had to register with the city of St. Louis and find someone to post bond in support of her registration.

[16] Wash filed a second suit on behalf of her daughter, for $1,000 in damages against David D. Mitchell for false imprisonment.

By this suit, Polly and Murdoch may have been trying to preclude Mitchell from appealing the court's decision, in addition to seeking reparations for poor conditions that Lucy suffered in jail.

[34] Polly visited her daughter Nancy and grandchildren in Toronto in 1845, and the younger woman offered to settle her there.