Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1915-06-04
OF ANCIENT BLOOD
Maryland Senator May Boast HE
Ancestry.
Descendant of Some of the Most Die
tinguished Families Of the Ma
ton, Blair Lee Has Name
Linked With History.

Imagine, If you nm, a congress
meeting In Washington, among whose
new senators could be counted a scion
OF the Washingtons of Virginia, an
other of the perennially famous house
of the Virginia Lees, yet another rep
~resenting the only less famous Blairs
of the day Of Andrew Jackson AND
the kitchen cabinet" another whose
mother had lived in the White House
as the intimate friend of "Old Kick
ory," and yet another descended d.
rectly from the wal cabinet of Abra-
ham Lincoln.
Add to that a group of representa-
t1ves of the colonial a~ristocracy that
founded Maryland and Virginia, that
received it's vast landed estates from
the old Stuart kings, that fought in
the colonial wars, that represented.
through ancestral ~afaliation, some in
innate association with half the adj
mlnlstrations that have presided at
the White House from the beginnings
of our government, and, finally, in
ciude in that group the most intimate
personal friends Of the present admin
istration-that would be quite a not
able representation Of the old Ameri-
can a~ristocracy. wouldn't it?
Yet there Is among the baby sem
ators of today n man who repre-
sents all this aggregated association
Of distinction and ancestry. He Is
Senator Blair Lee of Maryland-a Lee
of Virginia, a Blair Of the old Vir-
ginia-Ke ntucky-Missouri family of
that name, a gist of the colonial gists
distinguished for nobody quite recalls
how many generations, a relative Of
the Washingtons.
The Lee stock came over with the
c%onqueror," if there is any American
stock that can claim such a distinc-
ton. Their holdings in Virginia and
Maryland date back to the time Of
Charles |, the first of the line being
Richard Lee, who came as secretary
of the colony of Virginia, and was
given extensive landed holdings.
They helped to establish the early
greatness of Virginia, they served in
it's burgesses, fought in its Indian
wars, distinguished themselves in the
old French struggle. Light Horse
Harry Lee was one of this line. Not
everybody, even Of those who have
read their history well, remembers
that it vas yet another of this family.
Richard Henry Lee, who on June 7,
1776, introduced the resolution in the
Continental congress declaring the
colonies free.
Senator Lees mother, Elizabeth
Blair, lived at the White House as q
little girl, the protege and intimate
friend of the Jackson family. She
was a pet of the hard-fsted ole
Tennesseean, and her father, in turn
was a member of the Kitchen cab
met"
!. In the olden days, when the Lees
and the Washington family intermar
ried, the great immortal estates com
passed a large share of the territory
that now is and surrounds the Dis
trict of Columbia. The Washington!
had their seat at Mount Vernon; tbs
Lees came into possession of the mag
, nificent tract that was the home o
;
5 Robert E. Lee and is 10y Arlington
cemetery; the Blairs, somewhat later
4 attained yet other great tracts in ant
around the District of Columbia, ant
t the ancestral home of Senator Lee
only a few hundred yards beyond thu
District line in Maryland, is n o
the historic places of the country.
. It was there that Senator Lee
mother, a woman who lived to b,
t ninety years old and linked the De
r mocracy Of Andrew Jackson with tn
n Democracy of Grover Cleveland, wit
messed what she considered the mos
d dramatic scene of a most dramati
epoch-the struggle between he
9 father, Francis P. Blair, and John c
Breckenridge, his kinsman, over til
repeal of the Missouri Compromise
! Exchange.