U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Blair Family ------------------------------------------------------------------- History of Ritchie County by Minnie Kendall Lowther Wheeling News Litho. Co., Wheeling W.Va., 1911 Pages 487-490 The Blairs are of Scotch-Irish stock. Three brothers came from Ireland. One settled in New Jersey, one, in Pennsylvania, and the other, in the South-land. The one that settled in New Jersey, the grand-uncle of R. S. Blair, senior, lost his life at the battle of Trenton, he being a member of the staff of General Washington. But from the Pennsylvania family the Ritchie county Blairs are descended. David Blair, a product of the Keystone state, came to Parkersburg, in 1816, in his early manhood, where he held the position of Cashier of the Northwestern Bank of Virginia, and where he met and married Miss Elizabeth Beeson, daughter of Jacob Beeson, junior, who was a native of Beesontown, Pennsylvania, but with her parents came to Wood county in her childhood. Four children were born of this union: Isaiah, Jacob Beeson, Robert S., and Elizabeth, who died in 1843, at the age of eighteen years. The parents both left this world in 1835, the mother, on February 28, and the father, in March; he having contracted cholera while on a steamer on the Ohio river, died at Portsmouth at an inn, and in the old churchyard at that place his ashes lie. His wife rests at Parkersburg. Jacob Beeson Blair. — After the death of the parents, the second son, Jacob Beeson Blair, who was born at Parkersburg, on April 11, 1821, was bound as an apprentice to Josiah Shanklin of that city, and learned the carpenter's trade; but in 1842 he entered the office of his uncle, General John J. Jackson, as a law student; and in 1844, was admitted to the bar, being licensed to practice law both in the inferior and the superior Courts of West Virginia; and during this same year, he came to Harrisville and opened a law office, and thus the history of the family begins in this county. In 1851 he was happily married to Miss Josephine Jackson, sister of William L. Jackson, who passed on in 1856, leaving two daughters, and shortly after this sad event, he removed to Parkersburg and formed a law partnership with his brother-in-law, Wm. L. Jackson. Here he continued to practice his profession until 1862 when he was sent to Congress to fill the vacancy that had been occasioned by the resignation of the Hon. John S. Carlisle, of Virginia, who had been elected to the United States Senate. In 1803 he was re-elected to Congress, and took an active interest in the formation of the State of West Virginia. He served as a member of the new State's Legislature in 1865, and was minister to Costa Rica, Central America from 1868 to 1873; and in February 1876, he was appointed by the government as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Wyoming. He was one of the early Prosecuting Attorneys of Ritchie county, he having been twice elected to this office. He died at Parkersburg, where he sleeps, and here his eldest daughter, Mrs. H. H. Moss, lives. The other daughter, Mrs. Lizzie Bell, lives at Dayton, Ohio. Isaiah Blair, eldest brother of J. B., lived and died at Franklin, Ohio. Robert S. Blair, the younger brother of J. B. Blair, being deprived of his mother four days after his birth, on February 24, 1835, was tenderly cared for by his maternal grandmother until her death, when he was added to the family of his aunt, Mrs. Anne Gardiner of Parkersburg. He was first christened "David" in honor of his father, who also died when he was but an infant; but his aunt re- christened him "Robert Skyler" in honor of a prominent Pennsylvanian who was in some way connected to the Blair and the Beeson families. In 1848, Robert S., came to Harrisville to live with his brother, and a little later he was apprenticed to Thomas Reitz to learn the saddler's trade, a trade in which he became proficient. But this work being out of harmony with his tastes, he improved his spare moments, and finally passed the required examination and entered the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, from which he was graduated, after four years of hard study. John J. Jackson aided him in securing the appointment, and "Stonewall" Jackson was his instructor while there, he being the occupant of the chair of Mathematics and the Commandant of the Cadet Corps. Having spent all of his inheritance in defraying his educational expenses at this institution, he returned to Harrisville, and took up the study of law in the office of the late Cyrus Hall; and made his living by clerking in stores, and in doing such other tasks as came in his way, until he was admitted to the bar; and in his chosen profession lie continued until his death, making quite a record as a barrister. On July 1, 1861, he was married to Miss Rachel Core, daughter of the late A. S. Core, of Ellenboro, who was at that time a student of a college at Little Washington, Pennsylvania; and four children were the result of this union: A. Core Blair, the first born, is a physician of Randolph county; Robert S., junior, upon whom the father's mantle has fallen, is a prominent young lawyer and orator of Harrisville; Harry C, is fitting himself for the medical profession in a Louisville college; and Miss Lizzie Blair, of Harrisville, is the only daughter. Mr. and Mrs. Blair died at Harrisville during the winter of 1891, of lagrippe, an epidemic having visited the town and carried away a number of its citizens. They died within a few hours of each other and one low mound in the Harrisville cemetery covers the ashes of both. ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Ritchie County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/ritchie/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------