HUGH BLAIR

The following bio was taken from page 116 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

An old blue and luster sugar bowl sits on my treasure shelf reminding me of my ancestor’ trip to Texas. In 1849 my great grandfather, Hugh Blair, and his wife, Sarah Elizabeth (Grigsby) Blair, Hugh’s brother Vincent Blair, and his wife Mary Houston (Grigsby) Blair, Sarah’s sister, left Blair’s Ferry (now London), Tennessee on their trip to Texas. Tucked away among Sarah’s possessions was the sugar bowl. The little family group traveled down the Tennessee River on a flat boat to the Ohio River and on down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. There they took a steamboat to Shreveport, Louisiana. On the boat they contracted cholera and were quarantined in Shreveport. Hugh and Sarah lost two children, Billy Joe and America (called Mecky), and Sarah nearly died. Vincent and Mary H. lost several children also. When the families were well enough to travel, they continued in covered wagons to Rusk County, Texas, and the old sugar bowl traveled on.

When the group arrived at the present site of Laneville, the brothers bought land for $1.00 an acre, built homes and farmed their land. The old log kitchen that Hugh built still stands where Granny Blair stood off the renegades during the Civil War, but that is another story. The kitchen is built of squared logs, pegged together, and is a monument to the skill of our early settlers in building a kitchen, a county, or a country. Hugh Blair gave the land for the building of the Union Church, to be used by all denominations and as a school.

Great-grandfather Hugh served as a farrier in Tyler during the Civil War. His brother Vincent also was a soldier in that conflict.

Both Blair families raised families of upstanding Americans, including my Grandmother Sarah Margaret Blair, daughter of Hugh and Sara (Grigsby) Blair. Sarah Margaret Blair married my grandfather, John Henry Whitley, in 1871 and they raised eight children, including my father, Hugh Blair Whitley.

The sugar bowl was inherited by my grandmother and used until she gave it to my mother, who gave it to me. It is an emblem of their hardships and trials, the victories and love that settled Rusk County, Texas.

Children of Sarah Elizabeth (Grigsby) Blair (December 15, 1825-April 23, 1906) and Hugh Blair (January 2, 1825-May 13, 1891) who were married October 19, 1842 were Billy Joe Blair, who died about 1850; America Blair, who died about 1850; Tennessee Blair, who was born January 17, 1850 in Tennessee and married Jacob Allen McCrary who died, then she married T. J. Swinney. (Tennessee died November 9, 1907); Sarah Margaret Blair who was born April 16, 1852, in Texas, married John Henry Whitley, and died November 20, 1935; Hugh Grigsby Blair who was born March 29, 1855, married Sarah E. Wells, and died October 16, 1950; Mary Caroline Blair, who was born November 11, 1862, married Pierce Williamson, and died March 18, 1965; and Charles V. Blair who was born May 25, 1865 and died July 25, 1869.

Hugh Blair was the son of William Blair and Sarah Simmons and grandson of John Blair (soldier at King’s Mountain – Revolutionary War) and Jane Gamble.

Submitted by Helen Whitley Strader