Henry Clay

American statesman Henry Clay (1777-1852) was born on the Clay family farm in Hanover County, Virginia. Clay was the seventh of nine children of the Reverend John Clay and Elizabeth Hudson Clay.

Clay's father was a small planter owned more than 22 enslaved people at his death in 1781. Henry and his brothers each inherited two enslaved men from their late father’s estate. Their mother received 464 acres along with her late husband’s remaining enslaved people. Elizabeth Clay soon remarried. Henry Watkins, who proved to be a caring stepfather to her first family. Watkins moved the Clays to Richmond. He and Elizabeth had seven more children. A total of 16 overall children in a family was not an unusual number in the late-18th century.