Clay, was a Baptist clergyman, of sterling character, of great dignity of deportment, much esteemed by all who knew him, and “remarkable for his fine voice and delivery.” The pastor's flock consisted of poor people. A rock in South Anna River has long been pointed out as a spot “from which he used at times to address his congregation.” Henry Clay's mother was a daughter of George Hudson, of Hanover County. She is said to have been a woman of exemplary qualities as a wife and a mother, and of much patriotic spirit.
The Reverend John Clay died in 1781, when Henry was only four years old, and there is a tradition in the family that, while the dead body was still lying in the house, Colonel Tarleton, commanding a cavalry force under Lord Cornwallis, passed through Hanover County on a raid, and left a handful of gold and silver on Mrs. Clay's table as a compensation for some property taken or destroyed by his soldiers; but that the spirited woman, as soon as Tarleton was gone, swept the money into her apron and threw it into the fireplace. It would have been in no sense improper, and more prudent, had she kept it, notwithstanding her patriotic indignation; for she was left a widow with seven children, and there was only a very small estate to support the family.
Under such circumstances Henry, the fifth of the seven children of the widow, received no better schooling than other poor boys of the neighborhood. The schoolhouse of the “Slashes” was a
