Col. John Blair

Colonel John Blair. Major slave-owner in Jamaica. Member of Assembly for St Catherine, St Thomas-in-the-East, St George and Port Royal from 1701. Speaker of the Assembly 1715. Died 1728 aged 60 years. His first wife Nideme died in St Thomas in 1707 and his second Elizabeth in 1721. His son John Blair died in St Thomas in 1742 aged 26 years.

Memorial inscription in the Cathedral, St Catherine, Jamaica: HERE LYES INTERR'D THE BODY OF ELIZABETH THE LATE WIFE OF JOHN BLAIR ESQR WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 7th OF 7BER 1721 AGED TWENTY SEVEN YEARS LIKEWISE THEIR FOUR CHILDRN, JOHN, THOMAS, CHRISTIAN AND MARY HERE ALSO LIETH INTERR'D YE B0DY OF THE HONBLE JOHN BLAIR ESQR. WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE YE 27th DAY OF JUNE 1728 AGED 60 YEARS.

John Blair of St Catherine, Esquire. Estate probated in Jamaica in 1728. Slave-ownership at probate: 419 of whom 221 were listed as male and 198 as female. 63 were listed as boys, girls or children. Total value of estate at probate: £22036.07 Jamaican currency of which £10173.5 currency was the value of enslaved people. Estate valuation included £420.17 currency cash, £5106.13 currency debts and £826.46 currency plate.

Will of John Blair of St Thomas-in-the-Vale proved 22/10/1728. He left his eldest daughter Elizabeth £3000 currency, an enslaved woman named Betty and another 'negro woman' named Judy with her son Stephen. He left his second daughter Ann £2000 currency and an enslaved woman named Cuba (formerly her nurse) and another enslaved 'girl' named Margaretta, the daughter of Sikee [sp?]. He left his youngest daughter £2000 currency, and an enslaved woman named Amintas with her two daughters Nanny and Rose and an enslaved 'girl' named Quashebah, the daughter of the enslaved woman Sikee. He left his real property including his plantation [and the enslaved people attached to it] in St Thomas-in-the-Vale and his pen in Spanish Town (to be improved by his executors) to his son John Blair. He left his late servant Anne Jefferys £100 currency for her care of his children in attending them to England, and an annuity of £20 p.a., and £500 currency to Mary Jeffries [sic] als Blair, Anne Jefferys' daughter [and presumably his natural daughter], and an enslaved girl named Eve then on Sixteen Mile Walk. He left smaller monetary legacies of £50 and £100 to relatives including his kinsman James Hay in Jamaica and his brother Alexander in Scotland. His executors included John Drummond of the City of London.

W. A. Feurtado, Official and Other Personages of Jamaica from 1655 to 1790 Compiled from Various Sources (1896), transcribed at http://www.jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Members/bfeurtado01.htm.

James Henry Lawrence-Archer, Monumental Inscriptions of the British West Indies (1875), p. 29.

Trevor Burnard, Database of Jamaican inventories, 1674-1784.

PROB 11/624/401.