John Blair, Sr.

John Blair (c. 1687 – November 5, 1771) was a merchant and politician of the colony of Virginia. He served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly. As a member of the House of Burgesses, he initially represented Jamestown then Williamsburg (the successive seats of the colony's government), before being appointed to the Governor's Council. There he served for more than 25 years, including four times becoming acting governor during changes of the royal governors and while governor Francis Fauquier was in the New York and Georgia colonies. Nonetheless, this John Blair, the earliest of the four men of the name serving in the Virginia General Assembly, may be best known either as the nephew and heir of Rev. James Blair (who founded the College of William and Mary, where many descendants would be educated) or father of John Blair, Jr. (a lawyer who served in many governmental posts, including as a burgess, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Virginia judge and finally as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court). Early life Blair was born in Scotland around 1687, the only known son of Archibald Blair. His Scottish grandfather, Rev. Peter Blair, was minister at St. Cuthbert's parish in Edinburgh, married Mary Hamilton in 1654 and in his final years served as the rector of Jedburgh parish in Roxburghshire, Scotland. Archibald Blair was the youngest of the couple's three sons, had graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1685 (having studied medicine) and probably married this man's mother shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, his eldest brother Rev. James Blair had previously graduated from that university and been ordained a minister, but emigrated to Virginia around 1685 because he refused to sign a loyalty oath required by the Scots parliament. In Virginia Rev. James Blair would become the leading representative of the Church of England for five decades, as well as the minister in the colony's capital, and helped re-found the College of William and Mary. Rev. James Blair soon married a daughter of a leading family, but had no children, so after his brother Archibald and this boy emigrated to the colony, and the son was educated and married, he and his family ultimately became that cleric's principal heirs. Only one of Archibald and James's sisters (Christian Blair (1665-1725)) also emigrated to Virginia (after marrying Rev. John Munroe, who accepted a post at St. John's Parish in King William County).