Blairg
Transcribed from "History of North Washington, an illustrated history
of Stevens, Ferry, Okanogan and Chelan counties", published by Western
Historical Publishing Co., 1904.
GEORGE W. BLAIR is one of the
earliest settlers in the beautiful valley, near Wenatchee, Chelan county,
where he now resides, successfully engaged in fruit and stock-raising.
Monroe county, Ohio, is the place of his nativity; the date of his birth,
February 6, 1850. His parents, James A. and Mary Ann (Drake) Blair,
are natives of Ohio, and at present reside in Nebraska, having gone there
in 1859. The father is now eighty-four years of age; the mother sixty-eight.
Reared and educated on the frontier, our subject
remained in Nebraska until 1881, when he came to Montana and for eighteen
months engaged in the livery business. On October 13, 1883, he came
to Wenatchee, and on the sixteenth located one hundred and sixty acres
of land. He was accompanied by eleven other pioneers, many of whom
have since passed away. In the summer of 1884 they built what is
known as the "Settlers' Ditch," taking water from the Squill-Tac-Chane.
The main ditch is three and one half miles long. Of these orignal
ditch builders only our subject, Z. A. Lanham and Samuel Miller remain.
Mr. Blair has ever been a successful cultivator
of fruit and vegetables. All but twenty acres of his original property
he has sold or given to his children, retaining twenty acres upon which
he at present resides. His one story and a half house is surrounded
by five acres of young orchard, aside from which he has fifteen acres of
bearing trees. He has five brothers living, Brice, J. Harvey, John,
Grant and William. He also has five sisters, Sarah A. Townsend, Lizzie
Hurlburt, Nancy Connor, Ettie Gillispie, and Zettie Stuart.
Our subject was married at Alexandria, Nebraska,
in 1872, to Mrs. Margaret Davis, nee Thompson, a native of Missouri, born
in 1847. Her father, David Thompson, was a native of Pennsylvania,
of Scotch-Irish descent. An early pioneer of Missouri, he died in
1882. The mother was a native of Ohio, dying when Mrs. Blair was
quite young. The latter has three brothers, Isaac, Jacob and Robert.
She has one sister, Rachel Kilpatrick, mother of W. H. Kilpatrick, the
well-known railroad contractor.
Mr. and Mrs. Blair have four girls, Mary France,
Grace Stevens, Pearl Cooper and Alice Fry. The political affiliations
of our subject are with the Republican party. He served three years
as road overseer, was the first school director in the valley, and has
always taken a lively interest in school matters.
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