Background
Henry Kent McCay was born on January 8, 1820, in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Robert and Sarah (Read) McCay. His name was pronounced McCoy.
Henry Kent McCay was born on January 8, 1820, in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Robert and Sarah (Read) McCay. His name was pronounced McCoy.
McCay received an elementary education in Pennsylvania and in 1839 was graduated from the College of New Jersey.
Soon after his graduation, McCay removed to Georgia, where his elder brother, Charles Francis McCay was a member of the faculty of the University of Georgia. He taught school at Lexington in Oglethorpe County for two years, studied law in the office of Joseph Henry Lumpkin, and was admitted to practice in 1842. In the same year he removed to Americus in southwest Georgia. There he formed a partnership with George H. Dudley, which lasted for seven years. Then he became a law partner of Willis A. Hawkins. Like himself these two partners later became associate justices of the state supreme court. His first appearance in politics appears to have been as a member of the state Democratic convention of 1860, which split on the question of indorsing the action of those members of the Georgia delegation who had seceded from the recent Charleston national convention. He was among the minority that declined so to indorse the seceders and refused to recognize the pending Richmond convention called by the bolters from the Charleston convention. This action seems to place him on the conservative side of the issues that were leading to war. On the outbreak of the Civil War he entered the army: On June 15, 1861, he became second lieutenant of Company A in the 12th Georgia Regiment, was wounded at Alleghany, Virginia, in December, and was promoted to be captain and assistant quartermaster the next February. He resigned, but late in the war he was in command of a brigade of state troops at the defense of Atlanta.
On the coming into power of the Republican régime with Rufus B. Bullock as governor, he was appointed associate justice of the state supreme court. He served for seven years, resigned in 1875, and resumed the practice of law in Atlanta. On August 4, 1882, he was appointed judge of the district court of the United States for the northern district of Georgia. He died in office.
On the reconstruction issues he took the unpopular course and joined the Republican party. He has been classified, by a contemporary, as belonging in the small group of honest Georgians who thought the best interests of the state would be served by cooperation with Congress.
In 1842, McCay married Catherine Hanson.
6 March 1788 - 18 October 1863
1782 - 18 July 1828
31 May 1832 - 26 July 1902
1831 - 23 October 1853
1834 - 12 June 1855
8 March 1810 - 13 March 1889
8 January 1822 - 22 September 1906
1816 - 12 February 1894
8 January 1824 - 23 July 1896
13 May 1814 - 28 February 1862
