Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/271

 CLAY

CLAYBORNE

(Scull) Wood, and a descendant of Robert Clay of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, who oame to Philadelphia in 1710 and married Ann Curtis, granddaughter of Jolin Curtis, one of Penn"s council. His grandfather, Col. Joseph Wood of the 3d Pennsylvania regiment, served in the Con- tinental arm}'. Joseph Clay was elected in 1802 a representative from Pennsylvania in the 8th congre.ss and was re-elected to the 9th and 10th congresses, resigning his seat in 1808 to become cashier of the Fanners" and Mechanics" bank in Pliiladelphia. He was a member of the Philo- sophical society of Philadelphia. He was married Sept. 10, 1805, to Mary, daughter of Jolm and Mary (Mifflm) Ashmead, and had three children, Joseph Aslunead, a well-known lawyer in Phila- delphia; John Randolph, the diplomatist; and Ann Eliza, who married Col. John Richter Jones. He died in Philadelphia, Pa., Aug. 27, 1811.

CLAY, Thomas Hart, diplomatist, was born at Ashland, Ky., Sept. 22, 1803; second son of Henry and Lucretia (Hart) Clay. With his older brother, Theodore W. Clay, he was instructed by Amos Kendall during a part of the time that his father was abroad engaged in negotiating the treaty of Ghent. Thomas was later sent to the U.S. mili- tary academy at West Point, where he remained but a short time. He afterward studied law with Judge Boyle, sometime chief justice of Ken- tucky, and began the practice of law in Natchez, Miss. Thence he removed to Terre Haute, Ind. , where he continued the practice of law and en- gaged in farming. From Terre Haute he returned to Kentucky and in partnership with his father engaged in the manufacture of hemp, while farm- ing near Lexington. On the 5th of October, 1837, he was married to Marie, daughter of Waldemar and Charlotte (Le Clerc) Mentelle, French emigres from Paris, France, who left that country during the reign of terror, and settled in Gallipolis. They afterward removed to Lexington and lived oppo- site Ashland, the home of Henrj' Clay. By his marriage with Marie Mentelle Mr. Clay had five children. The older of his two sons, Henry B. Clay, served in the Confederate army throughout the civil war and attained the rank of captain. The younger son, Thomas H. Clay, was eleven years one ot the associate editors of the Youth'' s Companion, in Boston, Mass., and later engaged in the real estate business in Lexington. Ky He was a consistent Whig until the disruption of that party, when he joined the Native American party. In 1860 he was elected a representative in the state legislature, from Fayette county, and during the stormy period just previous to the civil war, strongly opposed every endeavor made to take Kentucky out of the Union. During the agitation ju.st preceding the resort to arms and throughout the civil war he was unvarying in

his support of the cause of the Union. In Octo- ber, 1862, he was appointed by President Lincoln minister resident of the United States to the republic of Nicaragua, whence he was trans- ferred to Honduras in April, 1863. He returned to the United States in 1866. His health was greatly impaired by his residence in Central America, and he died at Lexington, Kj-., March 18, \><~i\.

CLAYBORNE, William, (Cleborne or Clai borne as now pronounced and written) an English colonist, was born in the county of Westmore- land about 1590. He was the third son of Sir Edmund and Grace (Bellingham) Cleburne of Cleburn-Hall in that county, and was paternally descended (from a common ancestor with the Fitz Hughs and Washingtons) from the ancient Breton house of Akarius of Ravensworth County of York, founder of the celebrated Abbey of Jer- vaulx (1145), and on his mother's side from " Alan Bellingham of Levens, the famous treas- urer of Berwick. Avho received from King Henry the VIII., a moiety of the barony of Kendal, known as the Lumley Fee." He immigrated to Virginia with Sir Francis Wyatt in October, 1621, and was appointed sui'veyor of the Virginia Plan- tations by James I. He was a member of the Virginia Council in 1623, and was appointed by King Charles I., secretary of state for the colony of Virginia, March 24, 1625. His commission be- gins, " To our trusty and well beloved William Cley borne, Esquire, Greeting,"" and a similar commission was granted to him in 1627. Com- missions were also issued to him bj' the governors of Virginia in 1627, 1628, 1629 and 1630 and a special patent was granted him by the king at Greenwich, May 16, 1631, by which he was author- ized " to make explorations and discoveries anywhere from the 34th to the 41st degree of lati- tude, "and he obtained through his friend Sir William Alexander, the king's Scottish secre- tary, the necessary license to open up territory for increase of trade with the Indians. On Oct. 16, 1629, he led a successful expedition against Candyack (now West Point) which gave peace to the colony, and for which he was rewarded with the lands at Romancoke. On March 8, 1631. a license was issued by Governor Sir John Harvey (afterward his bitterest enemy) by which he was authorized to trade with the Dutch, and in which he is mentioned in the most flattering terms. In 1628 he visited England, where he made known his colonization and trading schemes, and for the.se puri30ses formed a copartnership with one William Cloberry, John De La Barre, and others of London ; Sir William Alexander obtaining for them license " to trade in any community wliat- ever. and to make any voyages or discoveries within the bay of Chesapeake."' In January,