| Clay-Ashland | |
|---|---|
| — Township — | |
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Clay-Ashland
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Liberia |
| County | Montserrado County |
| District | St. Paul River |
| Established | 1846 |
| Time zone | GMT (UTC+0) |
Clay-Ashland is a township[1] located 10 miles (16 km) from the capital city of Monrovia in Liberia.[2] The town is in the St. Paul River District of Montserrado County.[3] It is named after Henry Clay — a slaveowner and American Colonization Society co-founder who favored emancipation in theory but advocated a gradual approach to ending slavery — and his estate Ashland in Lexington, Kentucky.[4]
Established in 1846, Clay-Ashland was part of a colony called Kentucky In Africa,[4] because it was settled by African-American immigrants primarily from the U.S. state of Kentucky under the auspices of the American Colonization Society.
A Kentucky state affiliate of the ACS was formed in 1828, and members raised money to transport Kentucky blacks — freeborn volunteers as well as slaves set free on the stipulation that they leave the United States — to Africa.[4] The Kentucky society bought a 40-square-mile (100 km2) site along the Saint Paul River and named it Kentucky in Africa.[4] Clay-Ashland was the colony's main town.[4]
Notable residents have included William D. Coleman, the 13th President of Liberia, whose family settled in Clay-Ashland after immigrating from Fayette County, Kentucky, United States when he was a boy.[5] Moses Ricks, a successful farmer and Baptist missionary who founded the still-running Ricks Institute in 1887 to provide a Christian education to indigenous youth in Liberia, also grew up in the town.[6] Alfred F. Russell, the 9th President of Liberia, also resided in Clay-Ashland.[7]
The True Whig Party, which dominated Liberian politics for more than a century, was founded in Clay-Ashland in 1869.[8][9]