Description:

Clay Henry

Henry Clay's mother's handkerchief, handsomely presented, and with superb provenance


Fabric remnant belonging to Elizabeth Hudson Clay Watkins (1750-1829), mother of statesman Henry Clay (1777-1852), with outstanding provenance. The swatch is framed behind glass in a diminutive carved frame measuring 5.875" x 4" overall.


Elizabeth Clay's handkerchief has an ivory colored silk ground with 32 lines of multicolored thread intersecting in the upper left corner. Expected wear includes isolated minor thread unraveling, although the item has not been examined out of its frame. The frame's paper backing is inscribed verso: "Handkerchief belonged to President Henry Clays [sic mother. Presented by Mrs Albert Nichols." It was gifted to the Luray Museum of Luray, Virginia sometime between circa 1900-1960.


Henry Clay was one of 9 children born to a Baptist preacher and slave-owning Virginia planter named Reverend John Clay (1741-1781) and a local girl named Elizabeth Hudson. Henry Clay's mother was just 15 when she married in 1765, and, after her husband's death during the Revolutionary War, she was widowed at 31. Elizabeth's second husband was Captain Henry Watkins (1758-1829), with whom she had 7 additional children. The new couple managed the Watkins Tavern in Woodford County, Kentucky. Upon her death in 1829, Henry Clay removed his mother's remains to the Clay Family plot in Lexington, Kentucky and there erected a 9' tall Italian marble obelisk.


There are no known portraits of Elizabeth Clay, but she was once described by a grandson in the following terms: "…[Elizabeth was rather below the medium in statue and of well rounded [sic form, dark hair and eyes, and ruddy complexion…". This, along with other lively reminiscences found in the Filson Club's The Clay Family (John P. Morton and Co., Louisville, KY, 1899), provide us with some of the best information about Henry Clay's mother. (For example, one anecdote relates how marauding British soldiers stole Elizabeth Clay's white satin wedding dress in 1781.)


Kentuckian Henry Clay (1777-1852) was an influential figure nineteenth-century American politics. He was a lawyer, Congressman, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Secretary of State, and five times unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1824, 1832, 1840, 1844, and 1848. Thus Mrs. Albert Nichols's inscription "President Henry Clay" was less than accurate!


Elizabeth Clay's handkerchief came from the collection of the Luray Museum of Luray, Virginia. This museum, started by town resident Mary "Mollie" Zeiler Zerkle (1845-1933), safeguarded artifacts of mostly local interest. According to family history, nineteen-year-old "Mollie" nursed Union soldiers after the 1864 Battle of New Market. She married Lemuel Zerkle, and the two lived in New Market, Virginia until 1890. That year, the family relocated to Luray, fourteen miles east across the Massanutten Mountain range, where Lemuel had secured a post as Superintendent of Luray Caverns. Local historian Daniel Vaughn reported that the museum operated between 1938-1960, after which point the collection was sold at auction.

 


Gene H. Baber of Fisherville, Virginia was an avid antique collector. His collection included everything from Civil War letters to epaulettes, from early frakturs to vintage wind-up toys.

Provenance: Estate of Gene H. Baber, Fishersville, Virginia; Collection of Mary "Mollie" Zeiler Zerkle and Lemuel Zerkle, Luray Museum, Luray, Virginia


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