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Clay County was marked off from Cooke County on December 24, 1857, and named for Kentucky statesman Henry Clay; the population of the new county was only 109 in 1860. On the eve of the Civil War,qv Henrietta, the largest community, had ten homes and a general store. Indians, however, remained a constant threat at this time, and the army conducted regular patrols of the area. The county was organized in 1861, but it was largely abandoned the following year because of the removal of federal troops during the war. The 1870 census gave no population figures for Clay County, although a few ranchers and farmers remained near the Red River after most of the settlers had moved eastward to more populated regions.
With the establishment of Fort Sill in Indian Territory after the Civil War, settlers began to return to Clay County. Among the first permanent residents after the war was Henry A. Whaley,qv who raised grain and vegetables on his farm near the mouth of the Wichita River to sell to the army at Fort Sill. The county was reorganized on May 27, 1873, with Cambridge as the county seat, and during the 1870s a small but growing stream of new settlers moved in, attracted by good range and farm land. Most of the early settlers raised cattle, along with small crops of corn and cotton. In 1882 the Fort Worth and Denver Railway was built across the county through Henrietta. The town, which had been largely abandoned since the outbreak of the Civil War, bustled with new activity; after most of the residents of Cambridge moved there because of the railroad, Henrietta was incorporated and made the new county seat.
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