General Notes

[LWRigsbyHistGaFamilies.FTW]

Grandfather of Henry Clay, of Kentucky, Mitchell was a Baptist minister and settled in the Slashes of Hanover.

Quoting from L. W. Rigsby:

"The Indians appear to have become angered at Clay and his family by  reason of the aid given by them to the scouts and militia during the Revolution.

In August, 1783, after Clay had harvested his crops, and while he was absent from home on a hunting expedition to secure game for the family larder, a party of Indians crept in and attacked the family. At the time Bartley and Ezekiel were building a fence around some stocks of grain. The older sons had not returned from the Revolution. Tabitha and some of the girls were at the river washing while Mrs. Clay and the smaller children seem to have been in the house.

The first they knew of the Indians was when one of them shot Bartley from ambush. This frightened the girls, but Tabitha, seeing an Indian about to scalp her brother, rushed to his assistance and engaged the Indian in hand to hand conflict, she being without any weapon. It seemed for a while she might be victorious, but the Indian resorted to his hunting knife and literally cut her to pieces.

Mrs. Clay undertook to secure the aid of one Blankinship at this time, but he being a coward, ran off and left the family to its fate. After killing Tabitha and Batley, the Indians captured Ezekiel Clay, and for some cause left the premises with him, perhaps in search of the elder Mitchell Clay.

Mrs. Clay with her small children, secured the bodies of Bartley and Tabitha and placed them on the bed, when she and her small children left home, going to the New River Settlement.

Mitchell Clay wounded a deer, which he followed for sometime and was late in returning home, when he found the bodies of his two children on the bed and his wife and small children gone. Imagine his horror and grief, not only for the dead children, but for those member of his family whose fate was as yet unknown to him. There being nothing he could do at home, he made his way to the New River Settlements, pursued by the Indians into the Settlements. Here the settlers appearing too strong, the Indians stole some horses and made their way back towards the Ohio River.

A party was soon made up to follow them, consisting of Charles Clay, Mithcell Clay, Jr., James Bailey, William Wiley, Edward Hale, Isaac Hare, John French and Captain James Moore. They first went to the cabin and buried the Clay children. The Indians had divided, which fact was not discovered by the pursuers until after they had dome up with the party that had the horses. In the ensuing battle between the whites and the Indians, several Indians were killed. Charles Clay, only a mere boy, killing one of the Indians himself in the encounter.

Mitchell Clay, Jr., was at the time too small to handle a gun well, but shot at one of the Indians, but missed him, the Indian being killed by another member of the party.

The party of Indians carrying Ezekiel Clay were not overtaken. They took him down the West fork of the River, to their town, Chillicothe, where he was burned at the stake. The whites were so incensed at this conduct of the Indians that Edward Hale and William Wiley stripped the skin from the backs of two of the Indians and took the hide home and made razor straps from it, which were kept in the family for many years as a souvenir of the battle."