Jabez William Clay

Jabez William Clay (1852–1880) was an American-born graduate of Massachusetts Agricultural College. He was beginning his career in agricultural supply at the time of his death only five years after graduation. He is remembered as one of six Founders of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity in 1873.

Early life Jabez William Clay, born in 1852, was of Green Mountain stock. He was born in Fairlee, Vermont to William B. Clay and Martha M. (Carpenter) Clay. He had prepared for college in the Powers Institute of Bernardston, Massachusetts. Enrolling at Massachusetts Agricultural College, he was twenty-one years of age in 1873, and a sophomore when he and his closest college friends determined to create the secret society for which he provided the first glimmer of an idea. (p. 23)

Collegiate Activities "Clay was a giant both in body and in mind." (p. 16) Rand's 1923 history cites one example of Clay's physical prowess, assuming a common view at the time that Native Americans were excellent wrestlers and skilled at hand-to-hand combat: "At one time Clay roomed with an American Indian, a government protégé whom he had tutored for admission to college. On the evening of a Fourth of July this Indian came in upon a little party which Clay was giving to some of his friends, resented the assumed slight of not having been invited himself, and during the night attacked his roommate with fixed bayonet. Clay in some miraculous way parried the thrust and grappled with his opponent. The struggle lasted for some time and was becoming truly desperate when some of the other men broke in and brought it to an end." (ibid)

Clay excelled in school, and was considered "original and creative in his thinking powers." (p. 18) During his freshman year he won the Pioneer Scholarship offered by the class of '71. Clay graduated as the second ranking student in 1875, his senior year, placing behind another Phi Sig, William Penn Brooks, who was the valedictorian. Clay's commencement address upon the sun as the great source of power was described by a hearer as "superb."

Clay died of pneumonia at the age of 28 on October 1, 1880, at his home in New York City. Sadly, and making his passing even more poignant, the young man was about to be married, and was finally married, in fact, from his death bed. (p. 45)