Arrangements for Henry Clay's Funeral

(CLAY, HENRY.). Order of Arrangements for the Funeral of Henry Clay. [Caption title.] Broadside, 6" x 12". [Lexington, Kentucky: 1852]. . Printed in two columns. Foxed. $750.00

Dated at the bottom of the second column, July 7, 1852 and signed in type by P. Dudley, Chief Marshal. The funeral was held July 10 and drew 30,000 persons to pay their last respects to the former Senator and Secretary of State, up to that time the greatest man of the South. The burial ceremony was Masonic, and the broadside, which is not listed by Hummel, gives very full specifics for the arrangements, dress, decorum and order of procession (including 27 different organizations or committees).

Of considerable interest is the list of 12 pall bearers, presumably an important group of citizens and close friends; among them is Benjamin Gratz whom, we think, can only be one of the members of the great Philadelphia mercantile family which had considerable land and commercial interests in Kentucky. Clay himself was a noted land speculator in the period of 1805-35 in the Lexington and Louisville areas, and as a Senator had great interest in public lands and in furthering Kentucky's internal improvements. Van Deusen's 1937 biography of Clay does not record Gratz in the index, but the Simon Gratz manuscript archive at the Pennsylvania Historical Society is listed in the bibliography.