Ashland, the plantation of 19th-century Kentucky statesman Henry Clay, lies in front of you here in Lexington, in the central Bluegrass region. This estate’s buildings were raised by people he enslaved, who grew and harvested hemp, farmed livestock, and cooked and cleaned for the Clays. Ashland is a registered National Historic Landmark, and its name lives on in the Ashland Stakes, a Thoroughbred race at Keeneland that has run annually since the race course first opened in 1936.
Henry Clay came to Lexington from Virginia in 1797, and in 1804 he began buying land for this plantation outside the city’s limits. Over time he became a major planter who enslaved 60 people and owned over 600 acres. Among those enslaved were Aaron Dupuy and Charlotte Dupuy and their children Charles and Mary Ann Dupuy.
Clay took them with him to Washington, D.C., when his congressional term began in 1810, and they were held there for nearly two decades. In 1829, Charlotte Dupuy sued Henry Clay for her freedom and that of her two children, an action the record notes came 28 years before the Dred Scott challenge. Notice that Charlotte Dupuy sued Clay for her freedom in 1829, 28 years before the Dred Scott challenge.