Joseph Clay (1764-1811)
U.S. District Judge for Georgia; afterwards Pastor of the 1st Baptist Church in Boston
He was born in Savannah, Georgia, and was educated at Princeton where he was a member of the Cliosophic Debating Society. He read law under George Wythe in Williamsburg, Virginia, before returning to Savannah where he became a distinguished attorney noted for his eloquence. He was appointed a federal Judge for the District of Georgia in 1796, and drafted the revision to the state constitution. In 1801, John Adams appointed him one of the “Midnight Judges” - Judge of the Fifth Circuit Court - being legislated out of office by Jefferson the next year. Quitting the law in 1804, he became a Baptist minister and moved to Boston in 1807 as Pastor of the First Baptist Church, where he died. He married Mary, daughter of Thomas Savage, of Charleston.
