Chapter One

Although I cannot prove it, I am convinced that John Thomas Claye-the first of my ancestors to come over from England-had brown eyes. This may sound odd, even inconsequential to families who over time have looked into the eyes of relatives that reflect rainbow hues: blue, green, violet, or that luscious yellow that turns to key lime in certain lights. It is not odd, however, to me. My conviction that John Thomas Claye had brown eyes has substance behind it.

All of us, all of the Clays and Cecils-the mothers, the fathers, the sisters, the brothers, the grandparents, the babies-are brown-eyed. Photographs show our dark chocolate eyes for the seven generations that cameras have existed to capture them. Histories of the early settlers of Virginia and Kentucky go even further back. One author speaks of my eighteenth-century relatives not just in terms of their Revolutionary War service or their careers in law and politics but also discusses in surprisingly lush language the family's dark brunette looks. A husband writes love letters to "my black-eyed baby." Oral tradition describes "black eyes flashing."

Consequently, I think that when John Thomas Claye sailed into the Chesapeake Bay in February 1613 he gazed at his new Virginia homeland through irises of brown. I think his dark eyes darkened further when he stepped off the ship Treasurer onto the wharf built just months before on the James River side of the fledgling Jamestown colony. They darkened in stunned disbelief as he walked through the palisade and took in the handful of crude shelters, the deep mud, and the leth