52 Ancestors Week 6: My favorite name for an ancestor so far is Cassius Clay Auld. Cassius was born in Pennsylvania on the eve of the Civil War, July 4, 1859. [1] His father was a farmer.

It is likely Cassius was named after noted antislavery leader Cassius Marcellus Clay, founder of the anti-slavery newspaper True American in 1845. (The engraving is of Cassius M. Clay.) In 1853 Clay donated money to help found Berea College in Kentucky, the first college in the south that accepted both African-Americans and whites, and both men and women. [2]

In 1854 he helped found Lincoln's party, the Republican Party. [3]

Cassius Auld's parents had to have been against slavery in order to give him this name. I'm proud of them!

Cassius Marcellus Clay [4]

Cassius Clay Auld's gravestone [5]

1. "Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906–1966," database with images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 February 2018), certificate image, Cassius C. Auld, 14 October 1938; citing Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11, Series 11.90. Also, 1900 U.S. census, Washington County, Pennsylvania, population schedule, California Borough, p. 88 (stamped), Enumeration District (ED) 161, sheet 6A, Cash Auld; image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 February 2018).

2. "Cassius Marcellus Clay Biography," The Biography.com Website (https://www.biography.com : accessed 12 February 2018).

3. Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, "Cassius Marcellus Clay," Encyclopædia Britannica [online] (https://britannica.com : accessed 12 February 2018), para. 2.

4. Cassius M. Clay. April 7. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov/item/2003655305/ : accessed 12 February 2018).

5. Find A Grave, database with images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 12 February 2018), memorial 128676356, Cassius C. Auld (1859–1938), Monongahela Cemetery, Monongahela, Washington County, Pennsylvania; gravestone photograph by Franny.