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History of a House Museum

Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate

About Ashland
For Further Exploration
About This Blog

For Further Exploration

My work related to Ashland’s history *in word and image* may also be found:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/historyofahousemuseum/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AshlandHistory
Instagram: https://instagram.com/AshlandHistory

Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate official website

Pictorial history of Ashland by curator Eric Brooks: Images of America, Ashland The Henry Clay Estate

Biography of Clay by David and Jeanne Heidler: Henry Clay, The Essential American

Location of Ashland – Google Maps

Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate on Facebook

The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, architect of the first Ashland mansion

George Washington’s Mount Vernon

The Family Legacy of Henry Clay: In the Shadow of a Kentucky Patriarch by Lindsey Apple

Remembering Father: James Brown Clay, Merchants, Materials, and a New Ashland

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Ashland's house and grounds provide a journey to the past. #Ashland #HenryClay #history #Lexington #Kentucky #housemuseum Ashland's garden. Photo by Jason Rodman.

The intersection of the University of Kentucky's history, Transylvania University's history, Lexington's history, and Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate's history. An explanation from Carl Cone's book about the history of UK. #Ashland @henryclayestate #UK @universityofky #Lexington #Kentucky @lexingtonkycom @transylvaniauniversity #history #map #Woodlands

Lorraine Seay was the face of Ashland for thirty years. She was hired in 1950 and managed the museum for 33 years. Her roles were many: tour guide, hostess, curator, “executive secretary” and “administrator of the home.” Mrs. Seay took her hostess role exceptionally seriously, in a way believing that she was inviting people into her own home. She took great pride in the fact that people felt as if they were visiting a ‘real home.’ After the first three years open to the public (1950-53), she had guided most of Ashland’s 40,000 visitors through the house. Mrs. Seay welcomed guests at her desk in the front hall where registration and payment was required. In the case of large groups, she would greet them from the front doorstep. Large groups would be led through the house by tour guides, but smaller groups of visitors were often allowed to freely wander through the house, limited by the barriers erected in many of the rooms and closed doors that delineated off-limits rooms. Ashland, @henryclayestate #Ashland #HenryClay #MrsSeay #MuseumMonday #housemuseum #hospitality

Visiting Henry Clay at Ashland was at once extraordinary and comfortable for guests. Awed visitors often remarked that they had never met a man like him, yet he quickly made even the most intimidated feel at ease. Clay was described as a “believer in the utmost freedom…thoroughly democratic in his tastes, and... it was easy for the humblest citizen to approach him.” Mathew Brady daguerreotype, c1850. #Ashland #hospitality Ashland @henryclayestate #HenryClay

Today's Ashland garden is a 1950s creation. The original gardens were located in an area to the northeast of the current garden, closer to the house. Photograph, late 1800s. By the McDowells’ time at Ashland (1880s on), Henry and Lucretia Clay’s kitchen and flower gardens had suffered neglect for decades and, in some cases, had been nearly obliterated during the nineteenth century, but around the turn of the twentieth century, the McDowells sought to restore them. Great granddaughter Nannette told Alice Trabue in 1923 that her mother, Anne, had revived Henry and Lucretia’s formal garden. But, although Nannette tried to keep up the garden after her mother, that original garden seems largely to have disappeared by the 1920s. Trabue attempted to write an accurate description of the Ashland garden based upon Nannette’s memories (Historic Gardens of America, The Garden Club of America, 1923). #Ashland @henryclayestate #HenryClay #gardens #Kentucky #Lexington #bluegrass

Anne “Nannie” Clay McDowell, Henry Clay’s granddaughter (1837-1917), born in Lexington, Kentucky, daughter of Henry Clay, Jr. and Julia Prather, she lived at Ashland in the 1840s after her mother and father died. She married Henry Clay McDowell in 1857 and they bought Ashland in 1882, where she lived until her death. Photograph, 1890s. #Ashland #HenryClay #McDowell #Lexington #Kentucky #history #housemuseum @henryclayestate

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About This Blog
Architecture
Artifacts
Ashland General History
Farm
Grounds
Henry Clay
Henry Clay Era (1800-1852)
historic house museum
historic preservation
house museum
Interpretation
James and Susan Clay Era (1852-1866)
Kentucky University Era (1866-1882)
McDowell Era (1882-1950)
Museum Era (1950 – )
Preservation
Public Hospitality
Tours
Transfer of Ownership

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