Table Of ContentFILSON CLUB PUBLICATIONS NO. 14
The
Clay Family
PART FIRST
The Mother of Henry Clay
BY
Hon. ZACHARY F. SMITH
Member of The Filson Club
PART SECOND
The Genealogy of the Clays
BY
Mrs. MARY ROGERS CLAY
MemberofTheFilsonClub
Louisville, Kentucky
JOHN MORTON AND COMPANY
P.
Vxmtxti tn TltB Filson eriub
1899
COPyHIGHTKD BT
THE FILSON CLUB
1899
PREFACE.
FEW
elderly citizens yet living knew Henry Clay,
/V
the renowned orator and statesman, and heard
him make some of his greatest speeches. Younger per-
sons who heard him not, nor saw him while living,
have learned much of him through his numerous biog-
raphers and from the mouths of others who did know
him. Most that has been known of him, however, by
either the living or the dead, has concerned his political
career. For the purpose of securing votes for him
among the masses in his candidacy for different offices
he has been represented by his biographers as being of
lowly origin in the midst of impecunious surroundings.
Such, however, was not the condition of his early life.
He was of gentle birth, with parents on both sides
possessing not only valuable landed estates and numer-
ous slaves, but occupying high social positions. Indeed,
he could look back upon a long line of ancestors from
whom descended a family record worthy of being inher-
ited.
The unapproachable eminence attained by Henry Clay
as an orator and statesman has made every thing con-
iv Preface.
nected with him almost sacred. He has made us want
—
to know something about every one bearing his name
We
every one in whose veins flows the Clay blood.
would know all that can be learned of his nearest of kin,
and especially of that fortunate woman who brought him
into the world. A mother who could give birth to such
a son as Henry Clay deserves universal remembrance.
But has this mother been awarded such remembrance?
Who outside of some of her immediate descendants,
perhaps, can tell the story of her life, recount her virtues,
or even pronounce her maiden name? There are biog-
raphies enough of her illustrious son. A dozen or more
of them are now before me, and some of them in more
than one large volume but some of them are silent
;
even as to her name, while none of them devotes more
than a sentence or paragraph to the mother of the hero
they are striving for words to justly eulogize. One can
scarcely learn from these biographies that Henry Clay
had a mother at all, and they could certainly learn from
none of them the womanly virtues which characterized
this noble mother.
The Fourteenth Publication of the Filson Club,
entitled '' The Clay Family," supplies much of this
lacking information. It is divided into two parts, and
is by two different authors. Part First, by the Honorable
"
Preface. V
Zachary F. Smith, is devoted to the Clay and Hudson
families generally, and especially to Elizabeth Hudson,
the mother of Henry Clay. Part Second is by Mrs.
Mary Rogers Clay, and embraces the genealogy of the
Clays. Both parts were prepared for The Filson Club
and are now published for the purpose of making them
more accessible to the members than they could have
been in a single manuscript filed among the archives of
the Club.
Genealogy is now the fashion, and the Clay family
affords a fine theme in this line. The Clays have had
an enviable history in our country for more than two
centuries, and although none other bearing the name has
risen to the eminence attained by the ' Sage of Ashland,
'
a goodly number of them have filled positions of honor
and trust which would shine more brightly but for the
eclipsing rays of the "Great Commoner." All of the Clay
family are interesting to us because of the good deeds
of some of them and the bad deeds of none of them, and
their genealogy can hardly fail to be acceptable to the
members of The Filson Club.
The twenty illustrations of this publication will be
found to be the best that can be produced in the half-
tone style. It was much regretted that a likeness of the
mother of Henry Clay could not be found to take its
vi Preface.
place in this work. Her illustrious son appears in a full-
page halftone from an oil painting by the celebrated
Matthew H. Jouett. Colonel Robert T. Ford, who has
recently purchased of one of the Clays a large bluegrass
farm in Bourbon County, Kentucky, kindly furnished for
this publication a photograph of the original, which he
owns, and it is believed that this is the first time this
likeness of Henry Clay has been made public in book
form.
It is not likely that The Filson Club will pubhsh
another book during the year of 1899. Taking into con-
sideration the importance imparted to the subject by the
world-wide name of Henry Clay, and the fame of other
members of the family as cabinet officers and senators
and representatives, and foreign ministers, and governors,
and judges, and legislators, and soldiers, and men of
affairs, it would seem that this fourteenth volume of The
Filson Club publications may be esteemed one of the
happiest of its series, and may be regarded as a fitting
close of the good work of the Club in the century now
rapidly approaching its end.
R. T. DURRETT,
President.
Honorable ZACHARY F. SMITH.
PART FIRST
The Mother of Henry Clay
Hon. Z. F. SMITH
Member of The Filson Club
