Portal:Kentucky/Selected attraction/10
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ashland is the name of the estate of the nineteenth-century Kentucky statesman Henry Clay, located in Lexington, Kentucky in the Bluegrass region of central Kentucky. It is a registered National Historic Landmark.
Henry Clay came to Lexington from Virginia in 1797. He began buying land for his estate in 1804. The Ashland farm--which during Clay's lifetime was outside of the city limits--at its largest consisted of over 600 acres (2.4 km²). It is unclear whether Clay named the estate or retained a prior name, but he was referring to his estate as "Ashland" by 1809. The name derives from the ash forest that stood at the site. Clay and his family resided at Ashland from c. 1806 until his death in 1852 (his widow, Lucretia, moved out in 1854).
When granddaughter Anne Clay McDowell came to Ashland in 1883, she and her husband remodeled and modernized the house, updating it with gas lighting (later, electricity), indoor plumbing, and telephone service.
