William Alfred Blair
a merchant of Tranquility, Adams County, Ohio, was born April 13. 1829, on a farm six miles northwest of Tranquility. His ancestors were of Scotch-Irish stock. Joseph Wallace Blair, father of our subject, was born in Tennessee, December 22, 1799. When thirteen years of age, he accompanied his parents to Adams County, Ohio, and for a number of years was engaged in farming. His father, being afflicted. with rheumatism, gave his attention to school teaching and merchandising, first opening a small store at Belfast, Highland County, Ohio, associated for a time with the Hon. John T. Wilson. The last twenty five years of his life were spent on a farm of 155 acres, located near Russellville, Brown County, Ohio, where he died February 9, 1878, and was buried in the Red Oak cemetery in that county. Polly Ann Blair, mother of our subject, was born January 12, 1807, and died November 12, 1865. Mr. and Mrs. Blair were married in 1827, and were the parents of twelve children, six of whom are still living.
W. A. Blair, the subject of this sketch, received his education in the early days of his boyhood from his parents and in the district common schools of those days in Adams and Highland counties. He remained with his parents until fifteen years of age, when he came to live with the Hon. John T. Wilson, of Tranquility, and was employed to do general work around the store. He remained with that gentleman nine years, and acquired an interest in the store. In 1853 he accepted a position in the dry goods establishment of B. L. Jefferson, of Portsmouth, Ohio, and shortly afterward bought a half interest in the business, which partnership continued for two years. Mr. Blair next spent one year in merchandising at South Webster, Ohio, and in August, 1856, he returned to Tranquility and purchased the old Wilson store, then owned by Silcott & Mathews, and located on the hill. Five years later Mr. Blair built his present store room and dwelling, into which he moved in January, 1862. He was married September 18, 1856, to Mary Jane, daughter of John and Narcissa McCreight, of Adams County. Mr. and Mrs. Blair have had the following children: Frank Granville, born November 23, 1857, is conducting the store at Tranquility, married Lulu America Wasson, by whom he had one child, Earl Clyde; John Joseph, born September 24, 1859, is engaged in the banking business at Peebles, Ohio, married Espy Jane Patton, and they have one child, Charles Patton; Spencer Wilson, born December 29, 1865, is employed in his father's store; Blanchard Grier, born January 18, 1869, is a clerk in the Ripley National Bank, Ripley, Ohio.
W. A. Blair is a man of considerable means, of great business experience and ability, and his probity of character and uprightness in all business affairs, are unquestioned by those who come in contact with him. He was in the Civil War, served as second lieutenant in Co. G, 172d O. V. I. While never aspiring to public honors, he was elected by the Republican party of Adams County, Ohio, in the fall of 1885, as representative from said county to serve in the sixty-seventh General Assembly of Ohio for the years 1886 and 1887. He also served the township of Scott, in Adams County, Ohio, as its treasurer from 1862 to 1886, about twenty-four years. In politics he is a Republican; in religion he is a Presbyterian. He was the intimate friend of the late Hon. John T. Wilson having known him from childhood, and so thoroughly did he impress Mr. Wilson that he always placed the most implicit confidence in him, and at the time of his death, Mr. Blair was named as executor, without bond, of the Wilson estate, the largest estate ever left for settlement in Adams County, and he has conducted the administration of the estate with that care and fidelity Mr. Wilson anticipated.
From History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900