Dear Melba; Would you please look at your land grant book for any Blairs. Thanks, Mary Hughes

Dear Mary, There are listings for Alexander Blair 41, 55; James Blair 33, 40 (2), 50; John Blair 10, 41, 46, 89 (2), 108, 122; and Thomas Blair 53. These will take some time to transcribe as there are so many of them. I have to read each entry with a magnifying glass as the writing is so small. (We are in the process of a storm and I may have to turn my computer off for a period.) I will list entries for Alexander and Thomas now as a starter for you. (Please refer to previous email where I listed how to read the entries.) Alexander BLAIR 41, 55 (two entries-both in Section I) 1936 - Alexander Blair - 200 - 1787 - Greene County - On the North side of Holstein River 2643 - Alexander Blair - 150 - 1790 - Hawkins County - joining William Smith's lines BLAIR 53 I BELIEVE I HAVE FOUND AN INDEX ERROR - It lists within the index a James Blair 32, 40 (2), 50. By my own accident/error I had written down pg 53 for Thomas. A Thomas, of course, was not there. I then went back to the Index and found a James BLAIS pg 53. I believe this name could well be James Blair, not Blais and am giving this information below for you to do your own research. Index name James Blais, page 53, Section l 1543 - James Blais - 200 -1791 - Greene County - on the big meadow Thomas BLAIR 103, 122 (Index) Entry from page 103 1065 - Thomas BLAIR - 640 - 1789 - Davidson - on the South side of Cumberland River (This entry is in Section III. the date of 1789 could be mistaken for 1784 but as I looked at the preceding page listed 1789 and careful scrutiny feel the correct date if 1789.) Thomas BLAIR (from pg 122, Section V) This is typed as transcribed as follows. BLAIR, Thomas : III - 1065, assigned by heirs of George Adcock. BLAIR, Thomas; III - 375, assigned by heirs of William Bennett, Senr. Pvt.; III 390, assigned by Hance Pettegrew, Sgt.; III - 1335, assigned by John Redding, Pvt. (So as not confuse you, there are 3 land assignments herein.) ALL above entried for Thomas Blair appear in Appendix "A" which includes pages 119-160. If a name only appears in Appendix A it means the person did not hold a grant in Tennessee, but assigned his warrant for military service to someone else, and the grant was issued in the purchaser s name. If the soldier took up his own land the entry in Appendix A appears as: Ex: Ashe, Samuel, Capt; III - 27; and lastly, If the soldier assigned his land, the entry in the Appendix appears as: Ex: Abbett, John; see Bradley, James Bradley; III 4753, assigned by John Abbett Sgt. A reminder is given that NOT every N. C. Revolutionary Soldier is mentioned, only those who had presented their warrants for payment prior to July 1791 are listed. There is a note that says that 2,227 other warrants had been issued, for which grants HAD NOT YET BEEN MADE. In some cases the rank of the soldier was not given; the rank appears after the soldiers's name wherever it was clearly stated. After grant No. 1369 the names and numbers in the grant book did not correspond to those in this list. Since the time of the authors research a thorough restudy of the Land records was made by staff in Tennessee Archives IT IS POSSIBLE THAT MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE HOLDERS OF THE WARRANTS BASED ON THESE GRANTS IS NOW AVAILABLE. The first page or so of the Original Warrant book is missing and Grants referring to these first warrants COULD NOT be checked or elaborated upon. FYI - I went into the Index to see if I could locate where William Smith's property was and wouldn't you know it? There are oodles of Smiths, seven for William Smith. Not knowing which William it was/is and not following this Blair line would make it difficult for me to know. Now you have two counties to search for Alexander. SECTION I - General purchase grants - "An estimate of the lands granted by the State of North Carolina within the Western territory ceded by the said State to the United States of America," The grants issuing under this heading were all known as Purchase Grants and were paid for in cash or scrip or certificates. They are located from Washington County to the Mississippi river and from duck River Ridge south to the State border. 3326 grants are listed. The Revolutionary Soldiers here cannot be ascertained, for their grants were purchased with the scrip issued in payment for their services. It is believed the first grant listed under each County or District heading may be considered as grant Number 1, such as Washington County Grant No. 1, Sullivan County, Greene County, Hawkins County, Eastern District, North Carolina Grants, etc. The Revolutionary Soldiers here cannot be ascertained, for their grants were purchased with the scrip issued in payment for their services. FYI - Re the Preface of this book the authors, Betty Goff Cook Cartwright and Lillian Johnson Gardiner this book was given the printers in November 1958. And I just noted that my copy is autographed by both authors and the place/date is Memphis, Tennessee 1958. This little book is string/cord bound, its pages yellowed. It was a purchase made by my father and was given me some time prior to his death. It might be helpful to some of our readers to remind them that this book is of immense help to the family researcher when looking for earlier records of Tennessee kinfolk. We know that the 1790 census records of the Western Territory (Tennessee) were burned as were the 1800, as were the 1810 with the exception of one county only, that being Rutherford. Therefore, this Land Grant information becomes our substitute for a 1790 census of the part of North Carolina which became Tennessee in 1796. (Our thanks to Betty and Lillian. To accomplish this with no computer and such tiny handwriting must have taken many, many hours.) Melba PS Would love to know more about your Hughes line. I have one in Smith Co. (The above has taken about 2 hours...will finish later for James & John). -------Original Message------- From: Mary Hughes Date: 08/23/05 05:33:32 To: TNSMITH-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [TNSMITH] Re: Land Grant Look up Dear Melba; Would you please look at your land grant book for any Blairs. Thanks, Mary Hughes ==== TNSMITH Mailing List ==== Submit Your Family Pictures, Biographies, Histories Wills, Fokelore, To The Smith Co Web Project http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnsmith/