Jane Irvine

ASHLAND Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky Original built 1790 · Razed and Rebuilt 1850's

Henry Clay was not the first resident of historic "Ashland," deeds to the property reveal.

...the record perfectly clear as to the origin of the house and estate that served Mr. Clay throughout his last forty years of life and fame, is as follows:

A grant of 400 acres on Boon's Road" designated as "between Lexington and Mansfield" was made to Jane Todd, Col. John Todd's widow, January 9, 1783 (Fayette County, Surveys C, page 42). The surveyor's sketch shows it as extending along "Boon's Road" (U.S. Highway No. 25 today) 305 poles from John Maxwell's land to "John Todd's settlement and preemption land" (Mansfield), with Robert Poage's settlement of 400 acres bordering it on the south-west side.

Elisha Winters in 1789 bought part--later "Ashland"--of Jane Todd's 400 acre grant from her relative, John Hawkins--and "told the world" about it in the Kentucky Gazette February 23, 1793, as follows:

"NOTICE--Whereas John Hawkins and Anna Gabriella, his wife, did on the 11th day of September, 1789, execute a deed to me for a tract of land on the road leading from Lexington to Boon's Station, and it has since been represented that he never gave me a deed for same, and that he was willing to make another conveyance of that tract; this information is given, to whom it may concern, as a caution against bargaining for that land, for they will thereby purchase a law suit. ELISHA WINTERS." ....

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyfayett/dunn/ashland.htm