Family Tradition

February 26, 2024

Written By Jennifer Truesdale

Clay Farms Has a Rich, 200-Year History

Can you imagine what it takes to run a farm that has been continuously operated since before Missouri earned its statehood? What steps would it take to ensure its survival and safeguard its legacy?

John Clay and his wife, DaLana, are well-acquainted with these questions. The Clay family, who are MFA Oil members, have operated Clay Farms in Jamestown, Mo., since 1816. Seven generations of Clays have worked the land in northeast Moniteau County near the Missouri River. Throughout the family’s history, diversification and conservation have kept the farm going for over 200 years.

John and DaLana operate the farm with their son, Andy, and his wife, Kacey. Andy and Kacey, who represent the seventh generation, oversee the daily operations of the row crop and commercial cow/calf operation.

Inside the administrative office of Clay Farms sits a display case filled with family treasures. The case holds valuable heirlooms and historical documents that detail the family’s history as far back as the English ancestors who helped colonize Jamestown, Va., in the 1600s. The collection includes relics such as the hat of Jeremiah Walker Clay, John’s ancestor who founded the farm.

Jeremiah was born in Chesterfield County, Va., in 1765. He moved to Kentucky and then to St. Charles, Mo. From there, he led a band of Kentuckians to settle Lupus, Mo., around 1799, where he established an
80-acre farm in 1816 and opened the first trading post in Lupus. Missouri became a state in 1821, five years after the farm’s founding. The land grant for the farm was eventually signed by President John Quincy Adams in 1828, and the original grant is among the prized possessions in the family’s display case.

While soybeans, corn, and cattle are Clay Farms’ primary focus today, Andy said farming was different in Jeremiah’s time.

“Corn was probably always a crop in the creek and river bottoms,” Andy said. “But originally, a lot more hogs were raised in this area. The meat hogs were crucial for the families to feed themselves. Hogs and cattle have always been important livestock for the Clays. Oats and wheat were among the farm’s prominent crops
in more recent generations.”

Diversification has long been essential to the longevity of the Clay family farm. The examples provided by Jeremiah, who diversified through agriculture and the trading post, and subsequent generations who added different crops to the family’s fields laid the groundwork for today’s Clays, who generate revenue from several
sources. The family owns and operates Jamestown Agri Service, Inc.; offers custom earthmoving services to build drainage solutions; and more.

“Diversification has been a key to our success over the years, and that lesson has been repeated to me many times since I was a kid,” Andy said. “My wife loves horses, so we have some retired racehorses that she boards on the side. We also have a small outfitting business offering hunts on some of our owned and rented land. Hunters have taken some impressive bucks out there.”

In 1976, the farm was in the University of Missouri Extension’s inaugural class of the prestigious Century Farm designees for farms owned for 100 years or more by the same family. In 2021, to celebrate Missouri’s Bicentennial, MU Extension and the Missouri Farm Bureau recognized the farm as a Missouri Founding Farm,
one of only 30 in the state to be operated by the same family for 200 years or more.

Besides their longevity, the Clays are known for their passion for conservation. They use cover crops to protect their soil, plant habitat for wildlife and monarch butterflies on field edges, and participate in conservation programs to preserve their agricultural heritage.

“For our family operation—and this is true for many of our neighbors as well—we care very much for the environment, and we strive to protect it the best that we can for future generations,” John said. “Some people
(who don’t understand farming) think we’re out here to hurt them or the planet, which couldn’t be any farther from the truth.”

Andy said farming sustainably is just as important for the Clays and their legacy as diversification.

“Kacey and I have been blessed with three children,” Andy said. “The oldest is Hudson. He’s 16 and showing a lot of interest in returning to the farm. I hope that’s what he decides to do. And then also we’re blessed with a set of twins, a boy, Hayden, and a girl, Hadley. They turned 13 last summer.”

John beamed as Andy talked about the potential for an eighth generation of Clays to take on the family tradition of farming.

“I really hope all three of them decide to return [to the farm],” John said. “There’s definitely room for them if they decide to do so. And back to the diversification part, we’ll explore other avenues. But it’s got to be their choice—they’ve got to have the love to do it, or it’s not worth doing.”