Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Thursday, December 18, 2008

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Becci Ray, the estate's education coordinator, passed out hard candy to go inside each child's Christmas cracker.

Bathed in history and bedecked for the holidays, the Henry Clay Estate has again opened its doors to Fayette County schoolchildren, who come away with a more tangible understanding of life here in the 1800s.

Lansdowne Elementary fifth-graders this week visited the property, which they found covered in fresh snow. Coincidentally, a couple of the kids said what especially caught their eye was the dairy cellar and ice houses.

“It’s just neat to learn how they stored their ice and survived before modern inventions,” said 10-year-old Darcy Long.

Beaumont eighth-graders toured on Thursday; Ashland Elementary fourth-graders and Rosa Parks third-graders visited earlier in December.

“Our primary goals are that they learn the importance of Henry Clay and that they are able to name some difference and similarities between life now and life in the 19^th century,” said Becci Ray, the estate’s education coordinator.

Lindsay Thomas, a social studies teacher at Lansdowne, said the tour came at a good time since her classes were talking about Colonial America. “It gives them a little visual for what they hear,” she said.

Ray divided the children into three groups to rotate among the house tour, a brief video and grounds tour, and an activity station. To go along with this year’s theme, “A Dickens Christmas,” the kids each made a Christmas cracker – a decorative tabletop ornament filled with goodies.

Popular in England during Charles Dickens’ time, the original Christmas crackers held trinkets and riddles, and they popped open with a bit of gunpowder. The students’ home-made crackers contained only a pinch of confetti for dramatic effect. Their cylinders – made with toilet paper rolls, glossy paper and pipe cleaners – also were stuffed with peppermints and butterscotch candies and a personalized holiday note.

During the two-hour visit, Ray and the other guides talked a little about Dickens meeting Clay on a visit to America, and they told the children all about the famous statesman’s place in history.

Ten-year-old Mason Heightchew was struck by Clay’s restored carriage, displayed in a wing of the old stables. “He used it for every trip” to Washington, Mason noted, even when his body was returned to Kentucky. “They did a lot of zigzagging so everybody could say they saw Henry Clay.”

Inside the main house, festive decorations greeted the young guests at nearly every turn – yards of green garland with holly leaves draped from the foyer light fixture, pine cones and red berries nestled in greenery on the banisters, and the formal dining table set for entertaining – complete with Christmas crackers at each place setting.

“I always like to take my students to see at least one historic home here in Fayette County,” said David Overbey of Beaumont Middle School, whose students just finished studying the American Revolution and will turn to the Constitution in January.

“The main thing I want them to get from the trip is some exposure to early Kentucky history and see how wealthy people lived 150 years ago,” he said. “I also want them to see how different Christmas was during that time.”

Overbey said he’ll often mention details in a subsequent classroom lesson, and students will allude to things they saw and learned on a field trip.

That’s the response Ray and others at the Henry Clay Estate aim for.

“My No. 1 thing is I hope they get some little spark of excitement about history being an ongoing puzzle that we put together, and that we learn as we go,” she said. 

Ashland: The Henry Clay Estate

This national historic landmark is about a mile east of downtown at 120 Sycamore Road. For more details, call (859) 266-8581 or go to http://www.henryclay.org/.