Stone memorializing Henry Clay
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- Legacies Classification
- Memorial Type
- Memorial Context
- Memorialized Subject
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- Memorial Inscription
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- Historical Period
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- Location: Institution, City, State
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Memorial Object
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Plaque/Marker
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Clay, Henry
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Stone memorializing Henry Clay
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The “Walk of Fame” was created in 1929 by then president Hamilton Holt to honor significant historical figures. The memorial is located in the center of campus around Mills Lawn.
Henry Clay (1777-1852) served in different political stations throughout the U.S. including Senator, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and Secretary of State under President John Quincy Adams. Clay is recognized for three unsuccessful presidential campaigns, his assistance in establishing the National Republican and Whig parties, and his work on the Compromises of 1820 and 1850, which he saw as a means to limit slavery in the United States.
Clay was born in Hanover County, Virginia eventually moving to Lexington, Kentucky, where he established his plantation known as Ashland, eventually becoming one of the largest slaveowners in the state. Despite this, Clay viewed slavery as a "social and political evil that should be exorcised from the body politic" (Maness, 16). Nonetheless, he opposed the abolitionists who, he believed, would pull the country apart. He advocated strongly for gradual emancipation coupled with colonization, as he thought that "the two races could not live side by side in a state of equality" (Maness, 18). Although he did not free any of his slaves during his lifetime, he made provision for their children to be gradually emancipated so long as they went to Africa.
The stone used in Clay's memorial was retrieved from the farm on which he was born in Ashland, Virginia and transported to Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida so that it could be included as one of the original twenty in the Walk of Fame.
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Granite stone measuring 15 inches in width and 7.5 inches in length.
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CLAY
ASHLAND
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Holt, Hamilton
Rollins College
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December 1929
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Holt, Hamilton, Rollins College
Position: 1343 (55 views)