Blair Family: Early History Notes

BLAIR FAMILY: EARLY HISTORY NOTES

1.  Scottish people from Northern Ireland were called Scotch-Irish.  This distinguished them from the natives of Ireland.  The Scotch-Irish had three loves (a) love of God, (b) love of freedom, and (c) love of education.

2.  Hugh Blair (who married Mary Dawson): Born in Scotland in 1706 and went to Northern Ireland in 1741 due to religious persecution.  Some sources say he was born in about 1726.  He was a Presbyterian minister from 1741 to 1783.  He served in the North Carolina Continental Line for nine  months.  If this is true, he was an old man at the time of the Revolution and had his children after he was forty years old.

3.  Because of the oppression from the English king, at the close of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century,  many people came across the Atlantic Ocean to the American colonies.  10, 000 people a year came into Pennsylvania.

4.  Pennsylvania was the land of the Quakers.  They refused to sell land to the Presbyterians; the Presbyterians had money, so they went south to find land.  Virginia and both North and South Carolina were opening up for settlement.

5.  Nottingham Colony: A company organized within the old Nottingham Presbyterian church located near Rising Sun, Maryland.  The Nottingham Colony may have followed "The Great Wagon Road" (refer to the 1751 Fry-Jefferson map of Virginia).  Through its agents, the colony purchased from the Earl of Granville (his name was Lord John Carteret) 33 sections of land (each containing 640 acres) "lying and being on the waters of North Buffalo and Reedy Fork creeks".  These creeks run into the Haw river.  There were no settlers in the area before the colony came.  Arrival dates cannot be confirmed, but land deeds are dated in 1753.  The location of the land:
1753: Rowan county, North Carolina.
1771: Guilford county, North Carolina.
John Blair secured his land in December of 1753.  The fact that John Blair was settled in North Carolina by 1761 is evidenced by deed of that date which showed his former residence as Baltimore county, Maryland.

John Blair: (Note: Could this be John Blair Sr., brother to Hugh, who married Mary Dawson?  This John Blair listed Martha and son John in his October 8, 1770 will, which was probated in February of 1772.  Other children are referred to, but not named in this will.  Lucy Echols Blair's opinion: John Blair should be one more generation back.  He would be the brother to James Blair Sr.  John would have been the father of Hugh Blair, who married Mary Dawson).  He was one of the first arrivals; others came by 1765.  His land was a section on the headwaters on North Buffalo Creek.  It was a distance of 400 miles from Rising Sun, Maryland to this point; if you traveled 12-14 miles per day, the trip would take two months.  He sold this to Dr. Caldwell, who was minister of the Buffalo Presbyterian Church, on January 2, 1765; it was probably on this land that Dr. Caldwell's "Log College" stood.  He then located on Reedy Fork creek (deed for 640 acres in January 1762 shows the location).

6.  Revolutionary War: 1775 - 1781,

7,  Boston Tea Party: December 16, 1773.

8.  December, 1767: Daniel Boone seeks a way west over the Blue Ridge mountains to the headwaters of the Big Sandy (from Rowan county, North Carolina).

9.  Watauga Settlement: A "Hugh Blair" is listed on the Watauga Petition.  "Watauga" was the first settlement in Tennessee.  Jonesboro was Wautauga's oldest town.

10. Blairs: In Maryland about 1753?