Scholar; born in
Hampshire,
England, Oct. 8, 1764 or 1765; was of Irish descent: educated at the
University of Dublin; studied law and practised there; and in 1796 married the beautiful
Adelaide Agnew, daughter of
General Agnew.
who was killed in the
battle at Germantown, 1777.
Being a republican in principle, he became involved in the political troubles in
Ireland in 1798.
when he sold his estates in
England.
and came to
America with an ample fortune.
He purchased an island in the
Ohio River.
nearly opposite
Marietta, built an elegant mansion, furnished it luxuriantly, and there he and his accomplished wife were living in happiness and contentment, surrounded by books.
philosophical apparatus, pictures, and other means for intellectual culture, when
Aaron Burr entered that paradise, and tempted and ruined its dwellers.
A mob of militiamen laid the island waste, in a degree.
and
Blennerhassett and his wife became fugitives in 1807.
He was prosecuted as an accomplice of
Burr, but was discharged.
Then he became came a cotton-planter near
Port Gibson.
Miss., but finally lost his fortune, and, in 1819, went to
Montreal, and there began the practice of law. In 1822, he and his wife went to the
West Indies.
Thence they returned to
England, where Blennerbassett died, on the
island of Guernsey, Feb. 1, 1831.
His widow came back to the
United States to seek, from Congress, remuneration for their losses; but, while the matter was pending, she also died (1842), in poverty, in the
city of New York, and was buried by the
Sisters of Charity.
See
Burr, Aaron. 
