John Blair
Signer of the US Constitution
US Supreme Court Justice
1789 - 1793

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Jurist, born in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1732; died there, 31 August 1800, was graduated at William and Mary College, studied law at the Temple, London, soon became prominent in his profession, and was a member of the legislature as early as 1765. On the dissolution of the assembly in 1769, Blair was one of those that met at the Raleigh tavern and drew up the non-importation agreement.

 In June 1776, he was a member of the committee that drew up a plan for governing the state, was chosen to the council, and in 1777 became a judge of the court of appeals. He was afterward chief justice, and in 1780 judge of the high court of chancery. When the Virginia legislature established circuit courts, and directed the judges of the court of appeals to perform the duties of circuit judges, Judge Blair, with his colleagues, remonstrated, and declared the act unconstitutional. He was a delegate to the convention that drew up the federal constitution, and with Washington and Madison, alone of all the Virginia delegates, voted for its adoption. He afterward supported it also in the state convention.

 In September 1789, he was appointed by Washington a justice of the United States Supreme Court, and in 1796 resigned his seat.