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The Blair Family

A Register of Its Papers in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Paul Ledvina and Margaret McAleer
Revised and expanded by Michael Spangler

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2003

Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 1998

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms998026

Latest revision: 2004-12-29

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Names:

Subjects:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Transfers:

Copyright Status:

Microfilm:

Preferred Citation:

Biographical Notes

Francis Preston Blair

Frank P. Blair

Montgomery Blair

Gist Blair

Scope and Content Note

Related Material

Organization of the Papers

Container List

List of Informal Names Found in the Blair Family Correspondence

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.

Names:

Subjects:

Administrative Information

Provenance:

The Blair Family Papers were given to the Library of Congress between 1903 and 1996 by various donors, including members of the Blair family, William E. Smith, the Breckinridge Long family, Patrick T. Lanigan, and the Blair House in Washington, D.C. Additional papers were acquired by purchase. Material given by Richard C. Hollyday II was received in 2000.

Processing History:

The Blair family papers were processed in 1963 and reprocessed in preparation for microfilming in 1987. Several revisions of the register from 1967 to 2003 reflect the incorporation of additions to the collection. The Blair Family Papers have been described in Library of Congress Acquisitions: Manuscript Division, 1982, pp. 12-15,and Library of Congress Information Bulletin, vol. 59, no. 10 (Oct. 2000).

Transfers:

Items have been transferred from the Manuscript Division to other custodial divisions of the Library. Some prints and photographs have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division. Most maps and atlases have been transferred to the Geography and Map Division. All transfers are identified in these divisions as part of the Blair family papers.

Copyright Status:

The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of members of the Blair family is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).

Microfilm:

A microfilm edition of part of these papers is available on forty-nine reels. Consult a reference librarian in the Manuscript Division concerning availability for purchase or interlibrary loan.

Preferred Citation:

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container or reel number, Blair Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Notes

Francis Preston Blair

Frank P. Blair

Montgomery Blair

Gist Blair

Scope and Content Note

The Blair Family Papers span the years 1755-1968, with the bulk of material dating from 1829 to 1892. The collection chronicles the activities of a politically prominent family that included Francis Preston Blair (1791-1876), journalist and advisor to presidents Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and Abraham Lincoln; Frank P. Blair (1821-1875), soldier, United States senator, and lawyer; and Montgomery Blair (1813-1883), lawyer, politician, and postmaster general under Abraham Lincoln. The collection is organized in ten series: Family Correspondence, Francis Preston Blair Papers, Frank P. Blair Papers, Gist Blair Papers, Montgomery Blair Papers, Woodbury Blair Papers, Other Family Papers, Miscellany, and Oversize. Additions, appended to the papers in 1997 and 2003, are organized as a separate series.

The Family Correspondence series comprises letters written by family members to one another. The most prolific correspondent represented is Frank P. Blair. His many letters to his wife, father, and brother while serving as a Union Army officer during the Civil War describe the military campaigns in which he was involved. Montgomery Blair's letters to his wife and various family members depict the political and social scene from the 1850s to the early 1870s in St. Louis, Missouri, and later in Washington, D.C.

The series also contains numerous letters to Gist Blair from his mother, Mary Elizabeth Woodbury Blair, from about 1875 until her death. Those from his sister, Minna Blair Richey, include information about private family matters and activities during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Letters written by Virginia Woodbury Fox and her husband, Gustavus Vasa Fox, in the late 1860s and early 1870s during their extensive travels in the southern states note the social and economic conditions in the postwar South. Blair family correspondents also include several sisters and aunts of Francis Preston Blair and other Blair relations, most notably the Gratz family of Philadelphia.

The papers of Francis Preston Blair span the period from 1829 to 1876. His general correspondence begins about the time he moved from Kentucky to Washington, D.C., at the request of Andrew Jackson's supporters to establish and edit the Washington Globe newspaper. Prominent correspondents include James Buchanan, William Orlando Butler, John J. Crittenden, Andrew Jackson Donelson, John Charles and Jesse Benton Frémont, Charles Jared Ingersoll, Amos Kendall, William Berkeley Lewis, James Parton, Thomas Ritchie, Andrew Stevenson, and Gideon Welles. A special correspondence subseries contains most of the letters written to Blair by his longtime friend, Martin Van Buren (1782-1862), from 1836 to 1861, though a few letters from Van Buren to Blair are also filed in the general correspondence subseries. Other letters sent and received by Blair or forwarded by him to his son, Montgomery Blair, are interfiled with the latter's general correspondence.

Francis P. Blair's speeches and writings file contains rough drafts of exhortations to presidents, letters to newspaper editors, and political campaign speeches. Miscellaneous papers document secret meetings between Blair and Jefferson Davis in January 1865 in Richmond, Virginia. Included in this file are lists of points of negotiation and a memorandum of conversations which occurred during Blair's attempts to negotiate an end to the Civil War. Another file contains working notes and drafts emanating from the meeting of the Republican Party National Executive Committee in Pittsburgh in 1856.

The papers of Frank P. Blair consist of a small body of correspondence (1853-1874) and a miscellany file. A few letters relate to his military activities during the Civil War. His political career is documented in several speeches, fragments of political lists, clippings, and a legal file concerning his contested congressional election in 1862. Blair's correspondence forwarded to his brother, Montgomery Blair, for comment or action and has been retained as a part of Montgomery Blair's papers.

The papers of Montgomery Blair span the years from 1842 to 1887 and relate chiefly to his professional career after his return from St. Louis to Washington, D.C., in 1853. The most extensive files concern his law practice before and after his cabinet appointment as postmaster general. Most of his cases pertained to land patents and grants in the western United States. Also included are three volumes containing lists of the names of postmasters and post office revenues for the state of Maryland from around 1861 to 1864. Financial papers record Montgomery and Mary Elizabeth Blair's personal financial activities, especially from 1870 to 1873. Speeches and writings by Blair chiefly concern political and religious topics, as does a file of printed matter.

Included among Montgomery Blair's correspondence are letters received and rough drafts of letters written by Francis Preston Blair and Frank P. Blair. His father and brother often sought his advice and frequently forwarded letters received by them. Prominent correspondents besides those already mentioned include John A. Andrew, Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858), Charles S. Bernays, Benjamin F. Butler (1818-1893), Lewis Cass, Edwin Cowles, George Ticknor Curtis, Varina Davis, Henry L. Dawes, Edward Everett, Horace Greeley, Andrew Jackson, Reverdy Johnson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Parker, Fitz-John Porter, Whitelaw Reid, and Henry Dana Ward.

The papers of Gist Blair (1860-1940), lawyer and businessman, span the period from 1830 to 1968. A journal (1887-1888), general correspondence (1876-1925), and financial papers (1889-1917) chiefly concern his law practice and land speculation prior to his return to Washington, D.C., from St. Louis in 1897. Material related to his years at Princeton University is also included.

A significant portion of Gist Blair's papers consists of historical research files. Blair assumed the role of family historian and was instrumental in placing in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division the Andrew Jackson Papers, the Levi Woodbury family papers, the Asa Clapp family papers, and the Blair family papers. The files contain indexes, lists, and other material related to the history and ownership of the Jackson Papers. Also included are typewritten transcripts of correspondence between Andrew Jackson and Francis Preston Blair written from 1830 and 1845. Gist Blair was also involved in the preparation of William E. Smith's history of the Blair family and retained Smith's files of interviews, genealogical data, and related correspondence before and after the publication in 1933 of his The Francis Preston Blair Family in Politics.

The papers of Woodbury Blair (1852-1933), lawyer and businessman, span the period from 1866 to 1892 and chiefly concern the settlement of the estate of Montgomery and Mary Elizabeth Woodbury Blair. There are a few additional financial papers, a legal file, and a school catalog.

The series designated as Other Family Papers pertains to individuals related to the Blair family, most of whom are represented by a small number of items. There is, however, a substantial amount of general correspondence received by Elizabeth Blair Lee, as well as general correspondence of her husband, Samuel Phillips Lee. A diary (1840-1843) written by Levi Woodbury, some of the letters he received, law lecture notes, and miscellaneous notes and memoranda are also located in this series.

The Miscellany series contains genealogical material and files relating to the Silver Spring and Falkland estates in Montgomery County, Maryland, and to the Blair House across from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.

Addition I of the Additions series includes drafts of writings by Francis Preston Blair. The first, probably dated 1832, criticized New York editors James Watson Webb and Mordecai M. Noah for deserting Andrew Jackson. The second was written as a newspaper column or a speech probably during the summer of 1860. The addition also contains a ledger maintained between 1851 and 1855 by Charles Q. Clapp, a merchant in Portland, Maine, and a journal kept by Gustavus Vasa Fox between 1851 and 1855 when, on leave from the navy, he served as an officer on various transatlantic steamships.

Addition II comprises chiefly correspondence received by Francis Preston Blair and Montgomery Blair. Letters to Francis Preston Blair include political discussions at the state and national levels from the 1820s to the 1850s. Letters from Henry Clay concerning national and presidential politics focus on the disputed election of 1824 and Clay’s defense against allegations that he was party to a "corrupt bargain" that resulted in the selection by the House of Representatives of John Quincy Adams as president over Andrew Jackson. Drafts of a few of Blair’s responses are also included. Other significant correspondents with Francis Preston Blair include Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858), John A. Dix (1798-1879), William H. Haywood (1801-1852), Amos Kendall, John Van Buren, Martin Van Buren (1782-1862), and Silas Wright.

Most of the letters received by Montgomery Blair in Addition II depict national, state, and party politics as well as military affairs chiefly during the Civil War. Maryland politics and patronage dominate the correspondence which includes letters from four governors, officers of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co., and residents throughout the state. Topics include requests from unionists for protection against southern sympathizers and concern over the potential effect of emancipation and compensation. Also among the correspondence is a file pertaining to Scott v. Sandford, the United States Supreme Court case in which Montgomery Blair served as counsel for Dred Scott. Included are letters discussing legal issues and strategies from Roswell M. Field and Robert W. Wells, Scott’s previous attorney and the United States district judge, respectively, in the lower court hearing in Missouri. The file also contains a draft of a brief by Blair and letters from Calvin Clifford Chaffee regarding Scott’s manumission. Military patronage is also reflected in the letters, and several correspondents recount battlefield actions. Montgomery Blair’s correspondents include John G. Barnard, Augustus W. Bradford, Benjamin F. Butler (1818-1893), Stephen Arnold Douglas, John Charles Frémont, Thomas Holliday Hicks, Thomas George Pratt, William Henry Purnell, William T. Sherman, and Philip F. Thomas. Addition II also contains a small group of family correspondence and miscellaneous letters by James Buchanan, Charles Carroll(1737-1832), Edward Livingston (1764-1836), Winfield Scott, and Roger Brooke Taney and financial records of Maryland governor Samuel Stevens (1778-1860).

Related Material

Other collections in the Manuscript Division related directly to the Blair family include the Levi Woodbury family papers, the Asa Clapp Family Papers, the Samuel Phillips Lee Papers in the Naval Historical Foundation Collection, the Breckinridge Long Family Papers, and the Blair & Rives Papers which relate to the publishing business partnership of Francis Preston Blair and John C. Rives.

There are also substantial manuscript collections related to the Blair family at the Princeton University Library, Stanford University Library, and the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in ten series:

• Family Correspondence, 1831-1924, n.d.
• Francis Preston Blair Papers, 1829-1876, n.d.
• Frank P. Blair Papers, 1839-1884, n.d.
• Gist Blair Papers, 1830-1968
• Montgomery Blair Papers, 1842-1887, n.d.
• Woodbury Blair Papers, 1866-1892
• Other Family Papers, ca. 1755-1921
• Miscellany, 1793-1906
• Additions, 1811-1936, n.d.
• Oversize, 1854-1882, n.d.

Container List

List of Informal Names Found in the Blair Family Correspondence