Vermont daily transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1868-1870, 1868-09-09
The Blair FUnuiiU,
THE FATHER AND TWO SONS,
Correspondence of the Chicago Tribune


Correspondence of the Chicago Tribune.
WASHINGTON, August %.
If it should ever be your lot, walking
in the streets of Washington, to see an
idiotic faced old man of q singular
parchment ugliness, wearing Quaker
brimmed hat of felt or straw, his mouth
ajar, his eyes vacant, wrinkles like q
withered apple extending across his
face transversely, his sandy hairs frost
smitten-a being altogether to whose
physiognomy that of Horace Greeley is
the bright and morning star-conclude
the portrait of the stranger by writing
beneath it Frank p. Blair.
This old man, very nearly as ugly as
now, was brought to this city from
Kentucky by order of Andrew Jackson
who liked the sheet lightning way in
which he "lit' upon his political enc
mics. He was received by the whole
Cabinet at dinner, who looked at him
and experienced poignant disappoint-
ment. Jackson set him at his left hand,
opposite the suave Van Buren,, and he
munched through his dinner in
speechless, verdalt way, and tranStiXed
with the wild egotisma Of old Andrew,
and from that hour his willing Worship
per and eulogist.
When he got away from good society
and lifted his quill it was seen, howev~
er, as Mr.. Jackson remarked, that he
was no "smooch." What Jackson
could swear, Blair could harb and fire
straight to the mark, and for all that
administration Blair was the daily and
confidential literary Secretary of the
President He carried his proofs to the
White House every noon, and read them
to Old Hickory, who wiped,out, swore
in sentences with savage gluttony for
adjectives, and manifest repulsion for
clegancies but on the heads of Blair
and his partner, Rivers, jackson poured
moneys and benefit, till the one died
rich little while ago, with one fortune
here, and, it is said, a hundred thousand
gold dollars besides in the Bank Of Eng
land, while the other, past three score
and ten, lives on the neighbOrhOOd of
this city, and finds one of his boys a cam
didate for the Office of Calhom.
Brought up in Washington, in tho
prevalent days of political waylaying,
weekly and murderous dueling, Sam
Houston sitting on fence to club an eX-
Congressman, and one eX-Cabinet Off
Ger driven out of the city by another'S
cowhide the old man Blair himself
practising with the rifle every morning
before breakfast, and capable of cover
! ing the bullet of Rivers with another at
fifty yards, shot for shot-what wonder
that the young Blairs have grown up
reVolutionists and semi-savages, proud
of their unforgiving natures, and ready
upset Congress or rout State militia with
equal brilliancy.
"What do you think of young Frank
Blair?" l said to-day to an old jack
sOnian Democrat, almost as old as Frank
Blair, ST., himself; "you knew him
from boyhood"
He's rale grit. He was always
| fighting at school. He believed in the
code, sir: so did the old man stand up
by the code; they Were all on the code.
They were good shots, and proportion
ately proud of their honors."
us Frank the equal of Montgomery
ability ?'
"Smarter, sir: not so good-natured,
but more popular. He'll fight quicker.
Bless you! that Frank would make no
bones in cleaning out Ithe whole Con-
gress, boss, foot and artillery. He's like
the old man. He's great reformerW
Old Mr.. Blair, resident at Silver
Spring, farm which he purchased