Samuel Scollay was born possibly in Scotland or Massachusetts and was a resident of Bertie County, North Carolina. Scollay was an owner of enslaved people and in 1742 he submitted a petition stating that one of his enslaved people, an African American man named Scipio, had run away to Benjamin Hill's property and refused to return. It does not appear that Scipio returned. Scollay died in Bertie in about 1752.