Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1903 — GENERAL CASSIUS M. CLAY DEAD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GENERAL CASSIUS M. CLAY DEAD

M*t«d Kentuckian Paaeea Away at Uia Whitehall Hone. Gen. Cassius M. Clay died at his I Whitehall home, near Richmond, KyWedneaday night, at the age of 93. Ac his bedside when the end came were all his children, some of whom had not been inside the house or seen their fathe> for years because of his peculiar hallucination that they were in a conspiracy to kill him. Gen. Clay was a duelist, abolitionist statesman, author and the hero of a marriage at 84 to a girl of 14, whom he afterward gave up that she might marry a young lover. The room wherein he expired was a veritable arsenal until ha was adjudged insane recently. In a hall just outside there was a loaded cannon. The arms were got together to repel an attack of an imaginary vendetta. Gen. Clay served as United States minister to Russia under President Lincoln. Horn In 1810. Clay was born Oct. 19, 1810, at Whitehall, his family estate, upon the banks of the Kentucky river, near the village of Richmond. This place, which extended over 2,200 acres* was bought from the Indiana by his father in 1700 and Its Inheritance made young Clay one of the wealthiest men of his day. There are now 865 acre* in the farm on -y*i ieh Whitehall is situated. The general owned several blocks of property in Newark,

X. J., and some houses in New Orleans, and several* valuable tracts of timber and mineral lands in eastern Iventncky, his estate being estimated at about $200,000. Ilis property •will go to the children, to be equally divided among them. It was his only during his lifetime and when he divorced Dora Clay she was given no alimony and therefore has no claim on the property. Gen. Clay left a will which gives

the property, however, to the girl, but ■ince the courts have declared that his mind was unsound the will cannot stand ths test of the courts.

Sets Ilis Slaves Free. Upon being graduated from Yale Clay returned to the South and liberated his own slaves. He then entered upon his dueling career by forcing two encounters upon Dr. Declare}- of Louisville, who had written a scurrilous letter to the mother of his betrothed wife. Interference prevented any shots being fired and Declarey afterward committed suicide. The bloodiest of the veteran fighter’s affrays was that with Sam Brown, a desperado hired to kill him. The attack took place in a political meeting and when the smoke of battle had cleared «rway Brown was lying at death’s door minus a nose, an eye and an ear and blooding from countless cuts on other parts of the body. This was the Clay’s bowie knife, which he used in preference to a pistol. About fifty other encounters marked the course of the general’s life. Scandals resulting from Clay’s residence in St. Petersburg dnring his stay in Russia caused his first wife to get a divorce from him upon his return to this

country. In 1594 Gen. Clay, then &4 years of age, shocked his relatives by marrying, Dora Richardson, a 15-year-old girl, whom he had adopted. The child Was uneducated and wild, and eoon ran away from her aged husband. In 1896 ehe secured a divorce with Clay’s consent and married Riley Brock, a young farm hand. Clay gave her a plantation to live upon and furnished her home with elaborate tapestries and paintings brought from Russia and Spain. Brock was killed in a railway accident and Clay asked his former girl-wife to return to him. The old general was pronounced of unsound mind shortly before hie death and his ■on given control of his affairs.

GENERAL CASSIUS M. CLAY.