Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Blair, John, 1732-1800

Jurist; born in Williamsburg, Va., in 1732; was educated at the College of William and Mary; studied law at the Temple, London; soon rose to the first rank as a lawyer; was a member of the House of Burgesses as early as 1765, and was one of the dissolved Virginia Assembly who met at the Raleigh Tavern, in the summer of 1774, and drafted the Virginia non-importation agreement. He was one of the committee who, in June, 1776, drew up the plan for the Virginia State government, and in 1777 was elected a judge of the Court of Appeals; then chief-justice, and, in 1780, a judge of the High Court of Chancery. he was one of the framers of the national Constitution; and, in 1789. Washington appointed him a judge of the United States Supreme Court. He resigned his seat on the bench of that court in 1796, and died in Williamsburg, Va., Aug. 31, 1800.