 William
Blount was the great-grandson of Thomas Blount, who came from
England to Virginia soon after 1660 and settled on a North Carolina
plantation. William, the eldest in a large family, was born in 1749
while his mother was visiting his grandfather's Rosefield estate, on
the site of present Windsor near Pamlico Sound. The youth apparently
received a good education.Shortly
after the War for Independence began, in 1776, Blount enlisted as a
paymaster in the North Carolina forces. Two years later, he wed Mary
Grainier (Granger); of their six children who reached adulthood, one
son also became prominent in Tennessee politics.
Blount spent most of the remainder of his life
in public office. He sat in the lower house of the North Carolina
legislature (1780-84), including service as speaker, as well as in
the upper (1788-90). In addition, he took part in national politics,
serving in the Continental Congress in 1782-83 and 1786-87.
Appointed as a delegate to the Constitutional
Convention at the age of 38, Blount was absent for more than a month
because he chose to attend the Continental Congress on behalf of his
state. He said almost nothing in the debates and signed the
Constitution reluctantly--only, he said, to make it "the unanimous
act of the States in Convention." Nonetheless, he favored his
state's ratification of the completed document.
Blount hoped to be elected to the first U.S.
Senate. When he failed to achieve that end, in 1790 he pushed
westward beyond the Appalachians, where he held speculative land
interests and had represented North Carolina in dealings with the
Indians. He settled in what became Tennessee, to which he devoted
the rest of his life. He resided first at Rocky Mount, a cabin near
present Johnson City and in 1792 built a mansion in Knoxville.
Two years earlier, Washington had appointed
Blount as Governor for the Territory South of the River Ohio (which
included Tennessee) and also as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for
the Southern Department, in which positions he increased his
popularity with the frontiersmen. In 1796 he presided over the
constitutional convention that transformed part of the territory
into the State of Tennessee. He was elected as one of its first U.S.
senators (1796-97).
During this period, Blount's affairs took a
sharp turn for the worse. In 1797 his speculations in western lands
led him into serious financial difficulties. That same year, he also
apparently concocted a plan involving use of Indians, frontiersmen,
and British naval forces to conquer for Britain the Spanish
provinces of Florida and Louisiana. A letter he wrote alluding to
the plan fell into the hands of President Adams, who turned it over
to the Senate on July 3, 1797. Five days later, that body voted 25
to 1 to expel Blount. The House impeached him, but the Senate
dropped the charges in 1799 on the grounds that no further action
could be taken beyond his dismissal.
The episode did not hamper Blount's career in
Tennessee. In 1798 he was elected to the senate and rose to the
speakership. He died 2 years later at Knoxville in his early
fifties. He is buried there in the cemetery of the First
Presbyterian Church. |
