Clay County, Missouri

Clay County (is) a county in the northwestern part of the State, bounded on the north by Clinton County, on the east by Ray County, on the south by the Missouri River, separating it from Jackson County and on the west by Platte County...

The first white settlement was by French traders about 1800, at Randolph Bluff, on the Missouri River, but no trace of their occupancy remains...The first permanent settlers came in 1819, and among them were John Owens...Samuel McGee...and John Braley.

Clay County was created January 2, 1822, by detachment from Ray County, and was named after Henry Clay, of Kentucky. It extended to the northern boundary of the State, and included the area now constituting the counties of Clinton, DeKalb and Gentry and the large portion of Worth.

Clay County was formed from Ray, January 2, 1822, extending from the Missouri River north to the Iowa Line, with its present width of twenty-one miles, and its length, about one hundred miles.