The Clay Family
Henrietta Clay, second wife of George Michael Bedinger, was descended from Captain John Claye who came to Virginia on the ship Treasurer from England in February 1613. John Claye was among the Ancient Planters accorded with certain privileges by the Virginia Company for settling in the colony before 1616. John’s wife Ann Clay (maiden name unknown) came to Virginia on the ship Anne in August 1623. In 1625 John and his wife were living at Jordan’s Journey on the James River in Virginia. John Claye and Ann had been married before his leaving England. Why he delayed a decade without sending for her may be understood from the dire conditions in the Jamestown Colony. With the prevailing hunger, disease and despair, death had reduced the colony from five hundred to less than sixty persons. In 1616 there were only three hundred and fifty English people in all of North America.
Allotments of lands were made to settlers who paid the transportation of persons to the colony from England and to settlers who were prosperous in cultivating the land and paying rent to the King “at the feast of St. Michael the Archangel”. From these allotments there gradually grew up along the James River a scattered community of planters rewarded for their industrious efforts. Among the allotments accorded Captain John Claye the following is recorded In Ledger I, page 230:
“Patent (210) grants John Clay twelve hundred acres in Charles City County, Virginia, beginning at the lands granted by order of Court to Francis Hooke, up to the head of Ward’s, his Creek, and bounded on the north by James River. Due one hundred acres to him as an old planter before the government of Sir Thomas Dade, and the other eleven hundred for the transportation of twenty-two persons by the “West,” July 13, 1635.”[i]
Henrietta Clay’s father was Dr. Henry Clay, M. D. of Bourbon Co., Kentucky, first cousin of Henry Clay (1777-1852), known as “The Great Compromiser”, U. S. Representative from Kentucky, U. S. Senator from Kentucky, U. S. Secretary of State, and candidate for President of the United States 1824 and 1832. Henry Clay, M. D. was born in Cumberland County, Virginia, in 1736, and died in Bourbon County, Kentucky, January 17 1820. In 1774 he married Rachel Povall in Virginia. They moved to Charlotte County, Virginia in about 1770, came to Kentucky in 1787 and located in Clinton precinct, Bourbon County, then in a state of nature, densely covered with cane. He is remembered as a tall man with broad shoulders and commanding mein, clad “in doublet and hose, knee breeches and buckles,” which style of dress he wore until his death in 1820. For the first year after their arrival he and his family lived in a stockade. The old stone house built and occupied by him is yet standing and in use upon the farm and still [1899] in use and in the possession of the family. Nearby is the old family burying ground, a lot of one acre, enclosed by a substantial stone wall. By the will of his grandson, Henry Clay, a fund is set apart for its repair and preservation, and in the division of his lands that acre is purposely omitted, therefore will remain a graveyard.
Other descendants of John Claye the immigrant and close relatives of Henry Clay M. D. are General Green Clay (1757-1826), who served in Continental Army during the American Revolution and general in the War of 1812, member of the Kentucky State legislature, Virginia State legislature, and Kentucky State senate. Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810-1903), an abolitionist, who freed his own slaves in 1844. He was shot point blank while giving a speech in 1843; he used his knife to cut off the attacker’s ear and nose and cut out one eye. He was tried for mayhem and found not guilty. He was appointed U. S. Minister to Russia 1861-62, 1863-69 and attained the rank of general in Union Army during the Civil War.[ii]
[i] ”The Clay Family” by Smith, Zachary and Clay, Mary Rogers, 1899, Filson Club Publications Number Fourteen: John P. Morton and Company, Louisville, Kentucky and Dorman, John Frederick, 2004, Adventurers of Purse and Person Virginia 1607-1624/5, Fourth Edition, Vol. One, Families A-F, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. Baltimore, MD, pp. 643 – 698.
[ii] The Political Graveyard, on the web, www.politicalgraveyard.com.
Allotments of lands were made to settlers who paid the transportation of persons to the colony from England and to settlers who were prosperous in cultivating the land and paying rent to the King “at the feast of St. Michael the Archangel”. From these allotments there gradually grew up along the James River a scattered community of planters rewarded for their industrious efforts. Among the allotments accorded Captain John Claye the following is recorded In Ledger I, page 230:
“Patent (210) grants John Clay twelve hundred acres in Charles City County, Virginia, beginning at the lands granted by order of Court to Francis Hooke, up to the head of Ward’s, his Creek, and bounded on the north by James River. Due one hundred acres to him as an old planter before the government of Sir Thomas Dade, and the other eleven hundred for the transportation of twenty-two persons by the “West,” July 13, 1635.”[i]
Henrietta Clay’s father was Dr. Henry Clay, M. D. of Bourbon Co., Kentucky, first cousin of Henry Clay (1777-1852), known as “The Great Compromiser”, U. S. Representative from Kentucky, U. S. Senator from Kentucky, U. S. Secretary of State, and candidate for President of the United States 1824 and 1832. Henry Clay, M. D. was born in Cumberland County, Virginia, in 1736, and died in Bourbon County, Kentucky, January 17 1820. In 1774 he married Rachel Povall in Virginia. They moved to Charlotte County, Virginia in about 1770, came to Kentucky in 1787 and located in Clinton precinct, Bourbon County, then in a state of nature, densely covered with cane. He is remembered as a tall man with broad shoulders and commanding mein, clad “in doublet and hose, knee breeches and buckles,” which style of dress he wore until his death in 1820. For the first year after their arrival he and his family lived in a stockade. The old stone house built and occupied by him is yet standing and in use upon the farm and still [1899] in use and in the possession of the family. Nearby is the old family burying ground, a lot of one acre, enclosed by a substantial stone wall. By the will of his grandson, Henry Clay, a fund is set apart for its repair and preservation, and in the division of his lands that acre is purposely omitted, therefore will remain a graveyard.
Other descendants of John Claye the immigrant and close relatives of Henry Clay M. D. are General Green Clay (1757-1826), who served in Continental Army during the American Revolution and general in the War of 1812, member of the Kentucky State legislature, Virginia State legislature, and Kentucky State senate. Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810-1903), an abolitionist, who freed his own slaves in 1844. He was shot point blank while giving a speech in 1843; he used his knife to cut off the attacker’s ear and nose and cut out one eye. He was tried for mayhem and found not guilty. He was appointed U. S. Minister to Russia 1861-62, 1863-69 and attained the rank of general in Union Army during the Civil War.[ii]
[i] ”The Clay Family” by Smith, Zachary and Clay, Mary Rogers, 1899, Filson Club Publications Number Fourteen: John P. Morton and Company, Louisville, Kentucky and Dorman, John Frederick, 2004, Adventurers of Purse and Person Virginia 1607-1624/5, Fourth Edition, Vol. One, Families A-F, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. Baltimore, MD, pp. 643 – 698.
[ii] The Political Graveyard, on the web, www.politicalgraveyard.com.