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Chapman (1880), pp. 505, 679–680; Howard (1907) I, pp. 715–716; Goodspeed (1893), pp. 229–230
The Revolution left no soldier on this ground. Howard and Chapman agree that the county's only Revolutionary soldier-residents were Peter Roof, Sr., and Isaac Ross, buried in South Bend's old City Cemetery — a county fact, printed here at pointer strength so the negative for the township is exact: no Revolutionary soldier is shown settling on Clay ground in any of the three county histories.
The War of 1812 left one. Isaac Eaton, born in Loudoun County, Virginia, in 1775 and raised in Maryland, "enlisted and served to its close" in the second war with Great Britain, in the Virginia Militia under General Mason, and died in Clay Township on a Christmas Day — Chapman carries him in a biographical sketch (p. 505) and again in his son Jacob's sketch in the Clay chapter (pp. 679–680), and the two tellings do not agree: the sketch gives his death as 25 December 1869, aged 95, and his arrival in the county as 1830; the Clay chapter gives 25 December 1860, aged 94, and the family's arrival as September 1831. Both print, unmerged; his tombstone, probate, the census, and a War of 1812 pension record are the settlers. The stone itself is carried in the cemeteries file: a county creator's November 2026 film of the township's Cleveland Road grounds shows Eaton's stone standing in the Ullery burying ground, its death year reading 1869 — the sketch's form — at creator strength, no more. Howard's county list of seventeen War of 1812 residents (pp. 715–716) does not contain him; Howard himself labels that list partial, so the omission is a gap in the county record, not a contradiction of Chapman.
The Mexican War took one of the township's sons. In Goodspeed's sketch of Thomas B. Chalfant of Clay Township (pp. 229–230), Thomas's brother Evan Chalfant — of the family that settled Section 31 on 1 November 1832 — "was a soldier in the Mexican war" and died while serving. The sketch gives no unit, no dates, and no statement of Evan's own residence at enlistment; he is carried here at family strength, exactly that far and no farther, with the Mexican War compiled service records as his settler. Howard's county list names thirteen Mexican War residents (p. 716) and places none of them in Clay. The Black Hawk War of 1832 and the county militia organizations of that decade are South Bend and county organizations; Clay was not organized as a township until 1840, its ground lay in German Township in 1832, and no company or officer of that era is tied to Clay ground in any book. The settler-veteran count for the township before 1861 stands at two named men — Eaton and Chalfant — each at the strength stated.