Archibald Blair (burgess)

The youngest of three sons of Rev. Peter Blair, rector of Jedburgh parish in Roxburghshire, Scotland. His father had previously served at St. Cuthbert's parish in Edinburgh, where in 1654 he married Mary Hamilton. His eldest brother, Rev. James Blair had followed their father's career path, studying to become a minister at the University of Edinburgh and becoming ordained, but his career became derailed during Scotland's religious strife, when he refused to sign a loyalty oath demanded by the Scots parliament. Rev. Blair instead emigrated to the Virginia colony, where in addition to his religious duties (and later political responsibilities), and convincing this brother to join him in the colony, he re-founded the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. Rev. James Blair served as the commissary (emissary) of the Bishop of London in the Virginia colony for more than five decades and married into the First Families of Virginia in 1687, two years after his arrival in the colony. His 17 year old wife Sarah was the daughter of Col. Benjamin Harrison of Wakefield plantation in Surry County, as well as the sister-in-law of prominent merchant and planter Philip Ludwell Jr., who became one of this man's business partners. Although the minister's marriage produced no children before her death in 1713 (and historians suspect it was unhappy), Rev. Blair never remarried in the three decades before his own death, when he bequeathed much of his estate to this man's son, as well as made charitable bequests. Their middle brother, John Blair (ca. 1662-after 1689) remained in Scotland where he became an apothecary in Edinburgh, a burgess of that city in 1683 and Scotland's postmaster general in 1689;. Some of his descendants would later emigrate to Virginia, particularly his grandsons (by his non-emigrating sons Peter who was a skinner and another Archibald), John Blair (d.1757) who became a merchant in York County with this man's son. The other grandson, James Blair would assist this man both as a merchant and as deputy auditor of the royal revenue in Williamsburg (and was the father of both John Blair who died in the American Revolutionary War and the Archibald Blair who succeeded this man's grandson as clerk of the Governor's Council).^[5] Only one of their sisters (Christian Blair (1665–1725)) would also emigrate to Virginia (after marrying Rev. John Munroe, who accepted a post at St. John's Parish in King William County). Archibald Blair also graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1685, where he studied medicine.

Dr. Blair first married an Englishwoman (name unknown) who bore John Blair Sr., who like his father became important in the Virginia colony, although no record exists of his mother's emigration to Virginia. In Virginia, Dr. Blair first married the widow Sarah Archer Fowler, who probably bore the rest of his children, including daughters who became the main beneficiary's of their father's will: Sarah Blair who married Wilson Cary, Ann Blair who married Peter Whiting, Elizabeth Blair who married John Bolling and later Richard Bland, and Harrison Blair who became the third wife of Dr. George Gilmer.^[6] Dr. Blair's third wife was Mary Wilson Roscoe Cary, the daughter of burgess William Wilson and who had outlived burgesses William Roscoe as well as Miles Cary II (who died in 1709). They seem not to have had children together, although she would outlive this doctor husband by more than a decade.^[7]