Background
John Blair was born on August 22, 1802, in Foul Rift, New Jersey, United States; the son of James Blair and Rachel (Insley) Blair. His parents were immigrated from Scotland; he was the fourth child of ten children.
John Blair was born on August 22, 1802, in Foul Rift, New Jersey, United States; the son of James Blair and Rachel (Insley) Blair. His parents were immigrated from Scotland; he was the fourth child of ten children.
The young Blair received a sparse formal education, attending a local school only intermittently during the winter months.
At the age of 11 John became a helper in a store owned by a relative in nearby Hope, New Jersey, United States. There this bright, hard-working, and honest lad had his initial exposure to the world of business. In the early 1820s the always ambitious Blair formed a partnership with another family member in Blairstown, New Jersey, and opened a country general store. Although the partnership proved to be brief, Blair continued the business operations on his own.
But John Insley Blair became more than a village storekeeper. Early on he acquired other mercantile stores in neighboring communities in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and he commonly placed a family member in charge. With profits generated by those ventures, Blair developed additional interests, including cotton manufacturing and flour milling. Then in the 1830s this budding capitalist became fascinated with the iron industry. In time, he acquired major positions in various Pennsylvania concerns, the centerpiece being the Lackawanna Coal & Iron Company. His mining activities led him into railroading. His most significant railroading venture was the formation of what would evolve into one of the most profitable domestic carriers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western (DL&W) Railroad. Not only did Blair own a sizable portion of that expanding road, but he also successfully speculated in real estate, especially in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the DL&W established its maintenance and operational headquarters.
Always on the lookout for attractive business opportunities, Blair eventually seized upon investments in the trans-Mississippi West. In the summer of 1860, following his participation in the Republican presidential convention in Chicago, he visited eastern Iowa. “Blair seems to have no sooner touched Iowa soil,” observed one historian, “whereupon he perceived the boundless opportunities for opening up the West and the great possibilities of a trans-continental railroad with all its advantages to the Union.” Quickly Blair acquired an interest in the Cedar Rapids & Missouri River line, a future core unit of the Chicago and North Western Railway. In 1863 he participated in the survey work for that line through much of central and western Iowa. In charge of two of the railroad’s affiliates, the Iowa Railroad Construction Company and the Iowa Railroad Land Company, Blair did much to win local financial support and to develop townsites, including Blairstown in Benton County. The triumph of these ventures prompted him to become involved in other trans-Chicago carriers, most notably the Sioux City & Pacific and the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley railroads. Blair liked to develop a frontier pike, promote townsites and dispose of land, and then sell or lease the railroad to another company.
Blair’s mining, manufacturing, real estate, and railroad investments made him an enormous amount of money, creating an estate at the time of his death estimated to be worth between $50 million and $70 million. Yet Blair was generous, contributing funds to Princeton University and Grinnell and Lafayette colleges. His favorite educational institution, however, was Blair Presbyterian Academy, a coeducational secondary school in Blairstown, New Jersey, that he helped to found in 1848 and continued to fund throughout his life. Unlike some contemporary industrial leaders, Blair did not live in splendor, he maintained a modest lifestyle. Blair did not slow down until shortly before his death. In his mid 80s, he traveled extensively, and into his 90s he rose early to begin another business day.
Blair was a most liberal benefactor of the Presbyterian Church, of which he was a life-long member. In the eighty towns in the West, whose sites he was instrumental in selecting, he helped erect, by gifts of land and money, more than one hundred churches.
Blair was always keenly interested in politics, state and national. He attended every national convention of the Republican party from its founding, till 1892. In 1868 he was the unanimous choice of the New Jersey state Republican convention for governor, but lost the election to Gov. Randolph. The campaign cost Blair over $90, 000 personally.
Quotations: "I have seven brothers and three sisters. That's enough in the family to be educated. I am going to get rich".
Blair was a man of unusual energy and possessed a remarkable physique. He told friends that it had been his custom to travel about 40, 000 miles a year and that he reduced this to 20, 000 only when he reached the age of eighty-five. When ninety-two years old, he would often be at his desk at 5:30 a. m. , and business would then claim his attention during the greater part of the day. His habits were always simple, and his acquisition of millions made little change in his mode of living.
On September 20, 1828 Blair married Ann Locke. They had four children, Marcus Laurence Blair, DeWitt Clinton Blair, Emma Elizabeth (Blair) Scribner, Aurelia Ann Blair.