LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — A rare photograph of one of Henry Clay's slaves will now be displayed for visitors at Ashland, The Henry Clay Estate.
UK Libraries transferred a rare stereograph of Aaron Dupuy to the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation.
Dupuy was Clay's personal coach driver. He was enslaved by the Clay family for more than six decades, along with his wife and two children.
They are considered the best-documented enslaved family at Ashland, although this stereograph is the only known image of Dupuy.
It was taken somewhere in downtown Lexington, most likely during Clay's funeral in 1852.
As the foundation works to improve their storytelling of everyone who called Ashland home, historians hope the stereograph offers visitors insight into how Dupuy and his family lived.
"We get the opportunity to see that. We may not always be able to know all of those elements, but we can at least look and ask what is Aaron trying to tell us here?" said Eric Brooks/Curator and Site Manager.
"Ashland is not just the home of Henry Clay. It was the home of 122 people who were enslaved through no choice of theirs. We have a duty to those people just as we do to Henry Clay, we can learn just as much from those people as we can from Henry Clay."
The stereograph of Dupuy will be displayed next to a drawing of his son Charles.
