Shades of Gray [Lt. Col. Jos. L. McAllister, 7th GA CAV]: The Clay & McAllister Families of Bryan County, GA, during the Plantation Years (ca. 1760-1888).

Shades of Gray

by Carolyn Clay Swaggert

The Clays and McAllisters owned large plantations located along the Ogeechee River, south of Savannah, Georgia. Both families had distinguished forebears during Colonial and Revolutionary times, and turned to rice planting in the early 1800ís. As rice planters, they acheived great wealth, traveled, and educated their sons at Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Amherst. From the writings and plantation records of the Clays, one can obtain a clear picture of how the Clay plantations were operated and the familyís suprising views about slavery.

During the Civil War, members of the Clay and McAllister families joined the Confederate Army, and Colonel Joseph L. McAllister had Fort McAllister built on part of his property at the mouth of Ogeechee River. However, the Clays and the McAllisters held differing opinions about the Confederacy. The letters of Colonel McAllister illustrate the travels of the 7th Georgia Cavalry from Savannah to Trevillianís Station, Virginia, where he was killed in action. At the height of the war in Georgia when Shermanís troops overcame Fort McAllister and began their march on Savannah, the Clayís plantation was burned and the McAllisterís was spared. The accomplishments of Eliza Caroline Clay, who ran the Clay plantations from 1849 to 1865, were extraordinary, especially given the fact that she was deaf.

The autobiographical narrative, ìReminiscencesî picks up the family story after the Civil War and takes the reader through the Clay familyís last attempts to plant rice on the plantation. It is a delightful and often humorous account of a boyís coming of age in the country during the lean years of the Reconstruction.

The Clay and McAllister plantations were eventually bought up by Henry Ford in the 1920s and 1930s.