My Genealogy Hound

M. W. Clay, farmer and loan agent at Neosho, Mo., was born in New York, April 18, 1843, and was reared in Kankakee County, Ill. His parents, John B. and Eliza (Bruso) Clay, were the parents of six children, and the father was a mechanic by trade. Their eldest son, Moses W., was taken by his parents to Illinois and reared to the trade of machinist, which he followed until twenty-five years of age. After the outbreak of the oil excitement in Pennsylvania, he removed to that section and there remained fourteen years, or until 1880, when he came to Missouri. His operations in Pennsylvania ware on an extensive scale, but he lost heavily by fire. After coming to Missouri, he turned his attention to mechanical pursuits, and invented an improvement in engines known as “converting motion,” and sold the improvement at a handsome profit. He also invented a self-acting churn, which he sold for a satisfactory sum. His first purchase after coming to this county was a small tract of land, to which he has added from time to time until he now owns 1,060 acres, and since coming to Missouri he has laid by a sufficient amount to liquidate his loss by fire. Mr. Clay was married August 2, 1869, to Miss Nancy L. Bunker, of Oberlin, Ohio, and they have six children: George R., Alda, Charlie, Lovona, Willie and Walter. Mr. Clay is a live, energetic, go-ahead man of good business capacity.