Captain James B. Clay (CSA)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/100088418/james-brown-clay

Section: I Feb 7, 1906 Leader

Captain James B. Clay, one of the most prominent Confederate veterans and thoroughbred breeders of Fayette County, was found dead in his sleeping car berth on an eastbound C. & O. train near Baltimore early Wednesday morning.

Feb 8, 1906 Leader

The body of Captain James B. Clay, the ex-confederate soldier and horseman of this city, who died on a C. & O. railway train near Baltimore Wednesday morning left Baltimore at noon Thursday in charge of W. R. Milward Jr., of this city, who went there to bring the body to Lexington.

Copied from The Washington Post, Washington, D.C. dated Thursday, February 8, 1906

Horseman Dies On Train

J. C Clay, of Kentucky, Stricken Between This City and Baltimore.

Grandson of Henry Clay--He had a Long Career as a Breeder of Thoroughbred Stock.

Baltimore, Md., Feb. 7 -- Sitting up straight in the chair of a Pullman parlor car, with a newspaper gripped tightly in his rigid hands, James C. Clay, sixty-five years old, was found dead this morning on a Pennsylvania Railroad train between Baltimore and Washington.

A Colored Pullman porter noticed that the passenger's eyes, although wide open, were apparently fixed on vacancy.

"Ain't you feeling well, sir?" the porter asked.

There was no response.

"Beg pardon, sir; but ain't you feeling well?" again queried the porter.

The train swung around a curve. The passenger's head fell forward, and he would have toppled to the floor of the car had not the frightened porter seized him by the shoulder and held him up in the chair.

Mr. Clay was dead. He evidently had expired so suddenly that his fingers, in a muscular contraction, had closed upon the newspaper he had been reading, and he had stiffened into a pose that seemed natural.

Mr. Clay died from heart disease, probably an aneurism of the valves. From papers found on the body, Sergt Charles Loane, of the Central district, learned the identity of the man, and ascertained that his home was near Lexington, Ky., at the old Iroquois Stud Farm.

The body has been removed to the morgue and Marshal Farnan has communicated with the Kentucky authorities. Mr. Clay had boarded the train at Washington at 7:20 o'clock this morning. He had a through ticket to New York City.

"Jim" Clay, as he was known throughout the breadth of Kentucky and by every horseman of prominence, especially those of the old school, was a most picturesque character. He was a typical Kentucky gentleman, one of the kind that loved his horses almost as well as his kinfolks. He had had a long career as a breeder of thoroughbreds and his farm near Lexington, in Fayette County, in the very heart of the blue grass, is generally a Mecca for visitors to the so-called "Horse Heaven."

Mr. Clay came of a long line of illustrious men. A grandson of Henry Clay and son of former Congressman James B. Clay, he was by connection related to some of the very foremost families of the State, including the Breckinridges and Cabells, families that had been powerful in the past in statesmanship and public affairs.