The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-06-09
The Son of Henry Clay.
Thirty eight Years Of Hopeless insanity Ended
By Death in an Insane asylum.
From the Cincinnati ENQUIRER, May II.

From the Cincinnati Enquirer, May ".
Yesterday morning our special tele-
grams announced the end of a weary LIE,
in stating that Theodore, eldest son of
Henry Clay, had died in the Lexington
lunatic asylum, after long confinement
The record of his blasted life in brief is
this:
At thirty years of age Theodore Clay
was promising lawyer. He was the
image and the hope of the statesman
whose fame was on every tongue. 1t is
true that there were whispers of wild
living and of Indifferent morals, that some
wha- ii 1ged his fair repute, and even
darkened mis- future prospects. Still it
was hoped that these were but the result
Of yonth, and would be cast when circum-
stances called upon the ma;ured man to
assert himself and make his talent felt in
the community.
1t was at this turning point in his life
that Theodore Clay began to pursue, with
an unwearied perseverance that caused
his friends great nneasiness, a young lady
of Lexington, whom he had long loved
hopelessly. The object Of his attachment,
who is at the present moment one of the
repulsed, firmly but kindly, every atten.
tion offered by the infatuated young man,
affer his meaning had become manifest.
It was useless; he would not be refused,
and followed her in the streets by day,
and wandered IN the neighborhood of her
home by night in an annoying manner,
until at last it became evident that he
" was not there" to use the soft phrase
by which a kindly peasantry express in
sanity Subsequent violent demonstra-
tions tended to confirm the impressions,
it being even related that he went to the
house of Mr. 49,, and demanded his
daughter at the pistols point, until at last
the wretched truth could no longer be ig-
nored and confinement in an asylum be-
come necessity. This was accordingly
done Gin 1882, we believe, his father pro-
viding for his support at that time, and
leaving $4,000 in his will, the income
from which was secured to Theodore for
for life. That life, after thirty eight
years of imprisonment in what in the ear
lier days of his confinement he was wont
to call "a good boarding house but having
some Of the bigg st fools he ever saw as
boarders," has just closed. For ne,rly
thirty years he was one of the most ,ted
of the inmates, not only his proud d. mt,
but his graceful manner and flow of con
versation rendering him an object Of in
terest to all visitors. He laboIed under
the hallucination that he was George
Washington, and was found assuming the
traditional attitude of the Father of his
Country. At the occasional balls given
to the inmates averaging five hundred
in number) he was always exqustely
dressed in the style Of his day, and was
the beau par excellence. During all these
long years, despite his general gentleness
and cheerfulness of manner, he was RESI-.
less and discontented, and required clm Q
watching, it never, in fact, having been
considered prudent to allow him
to 90 out into the grounds without
attendants About the year 1869 his con-
dition began to grow worse, and he soon
after became demented, continuing in
hopeless idiocy until few days since
when death, greater healer than time,
placed him again upon an equality with
the peers of his early manhood who had
gone before him to the God that created
him and did with him according to His
lnscrutable will And so ends as sad a
story as the truth of history ever COM
maEded to be written.
Two sons of Henry Clay yet survive him
IT Fl. Clay, g; minister to Honduras,
now residing on hie place, Mansfield"
near Lexington, and John M. Clay, the
raiser of Kentucky, and one of the great
est turfmen living. ae 9f H