Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1894 — WINTER AND SPRING. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WINTER AND SPRING.

Marriage of an Octogenarian to a Maid of Fifteen. (Sen. Camlua M. Clay, of Kentucky, Weds Dora Richardson, a Domestic in his Employ. , \ ~ 2 Kentuckians have another matrimonial lensation, in which the somewhat noted Gen. Cassius M Clay, now in his eightyfourth year, figures las the hero. The General some time since determined to marry Dora Richardson, a girl of fifteen, who had been employed at his residence as a domestic. His children strenuously opposed the match. Gen. Clay resides op his estate called Whitehall, in the vicinity #f Lexington, and is very wealthy. The opposition of ills children, who succeeded

In inducing all ministers and justices in that neighborhood to refuse to perform the ceremony, only served to increase his determination. The General was in a towering rage and stationed pickets all about his estate with orders to refuse admittance to all, and swore by all that is holy that he would marry Dora Richardson if it took his entire fortune to secure a minister to officiate. Finally, in spite of all the efforts of the General’B "children, he succeeded in inducing’Squire Douglass to perform the ceremony, which took place Tuesday, at Whitehall,the elegant home of the groom, in the presence of the farm hands and Dora Richardson’s relatives. Cassius Marcellus Clay was the first abolitionist of Kentucky and a cousin of Henry Clay.. He was Minister to Russia during President Lincoln’s administration. He was born in the house where he now lives. He is over six feet tall, has a big head crowned with white hair, and a face still unwrinkled by time. Cassius M. Clay has been a prominent figure in Kentucky ever since he began to preach the abolition of slavery. H« was a great athlete then and rather delighted in the

fact that in his stumping tours he carried his life in his hands. For a time he carried no weapons but those nature had given him. Later he carried a bowie knife, with which he disemboweled Silas Turner, one of the famous Turner brothers, who, after threatening his life for some time, attacked him as he was addressing a public meeting. After that he always laid two pistols on the table before him when he rose to (peak, but he was never again attacked in the same way. He was a Democrat then, andjwhen the war broke out he naturally became a war Democrat. After the war he became a Republican. In the last ten years he became a Democrat again, and in 1884 he became a Blaine Republican. Since his retirement from public life, Clay has been living at his homestead, in the Bluegrass country, where he has one hundred acres of the best land in the world. His only companion was his natural son, born in Russia. Mrs. Clay has not lived with her husband since his return from Russia, nor have any of her children. She lives with her daughter Anna in Lexington.

GEN. CASSIUS M. CLAY.

DORA RICHARDSON, THE YOUNG BRIDE.