Bowie's or Baker's Company?

Hey, everything Alamo is anal. Welcome to the club. I urge you to get Bill Groneman's book as well as dig up a copy of the Alamo Lore And Myth Organization's newsletter, Vol. 3, Issue 3, (Sept, 1981). (Alamo Library for sure.) David Lions did sort of what you seem to be doing, and the "Roll Call" is always due for updating and rethinking (the definition of "anality." LOL). Good luck.

Bob, my post was a bit misleading as I did not paste the complete line from the spreadsheet concerning James Blair, I have him down as
'Possible member of this company' as per The Handbook of Texas Online:



The 'Handbook' also states that:



The problems with the Rose / Zuber account are well known, but it is interesting that he claims to have known Blair, when you consider that Rose alledgedly knew & 'accompanied' Bowie to the Alamo.

Will you please post your background notes on John Blair, I would be most interested to see whatever info you have.

Robert.

Written by a cousin for inclusion in a draft family history, this should not be used for documenting anything regarding the Battle of the Alamo. Note his disclaimer at the end. Some literary license may have been taken but the essence of John Blair's life is still there I believe.

John Blair 15 November 1803-6 March 1836

John was the second oldest son of Thomas Blair and Polly Wall Blair. Although it has been often stated that John was from Tennessee, the Blair family was in the Cape Girardeau, Missouri area by 1806. John may have been born in Georgia before the family moved or possibly in Missouri. If he was born in what is now Missouri, he was one of the first Americans born in Louisiana Purchase land. The treaty had been signed in Paris in April but was ratified by the United States congress just a month before John’s 1803 birth date. John’s family was typically large and he had six brothers and two sisters. The family was Methodist and John’s father was one of the charter members of the first congregation west of the Mississippi at McKendree Chapel near Jackson, Missouri. John’s middle name is not known but several of his brothers are middle named after prominent Methodist bishops of the time. His physical appearance is not known but the Blairs were typically of fair complexion, freckled, tall, lanky and had red hair.

The Blair family had likely come to America sometime after the Highland clearances of the eighteenth century and via Antrim county, Ireland. John’s father, Thomas, is thought to have been born in Georgia around the time of the Declaration of Independence. The family may have been descendants of Scottish cattle drovers as cattle have been a part of the lives of most of the subsequent generations of Blairs.

John was less than one year old when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off from St. Louis to explore the northwest. He would have been startled at age eight by the first violent tremors of the New Madrid earth quake centered just about fifty miles south and would have been astounded to find out that the quake opened large chasms on the land and had changed the course of the mighty river. He would have also witnessed the Great Comet of 1811 and a solar eclipse in September of the same year.

The young John may have been enthralled by stories of Zebulon Pike, Colter, Sparks, Freeman and, of course, Lewis and Clark exploring new lands and having unimaginable adventures. Living on the Mississippi in the early 1800’s meant that he would have been exposed to fur traders and adventurers like Manuel Lisa, Auguste and Pierre Choteau, Mike Fink and other men enthusiastically pursuing their fortunes on the river. He may even have been an excited witness to the first steamboat, The New Orleans, traversing the Mississippi. As a teenager he saw Missouri become a state in 1820.

As young John Blair approached adulthood he would have surely heard tales of the opportunities in the new land of Tejas. It was said that men could go there and be all but given great tracts of good land with abundant water and agreeable climate. He met and married a young lady who was possibly named Mary. And so it is against this backdrop of the excitement of new exploration, fortunes to be made, and being responsible for making your own way in a bright new world, that John and Mary set off for Tejas.

John Blair was a dreamer like so many others who, before him and after him, settled new lands. Like most who undertake such an intoxicating new experience, they discounted the reports of brutal Commanche attacks, stifling hot summers, freezing blue northers, deadly rattlesnakes, clouds of biting insects and alternating seas of mud and impenetrable dust storms filtering out of the new land. They probably assumed they could continue their devotion to their Methodist faith while paying mere lip service to the requirement that they convert to Roman Catholicism as a condition of immigration. This requirement would not have been popular with the rest of the devout Methodist Blair family and was likely a significant point of contention prior to the couple’s departure.

It is not known when they arrived in eastern Tejas but John registered as a married man for one league of land (4,428 acres) in Zavala’s Colony on February 19, 1835. John and Mary had dreams of hundreds of valuable beeves grazing on their league of land, raising a large family and living a long, comfortable life as Texians. In less than a year that dream would be smashed forever by the war of the Texas revolution.

John dutifully joined the revolution and went to Bexar as a Private with Colonel James Bowie. He may have served as a fourth cannoneer with Parrott’s artillery battery but later followed Bowie into the Alamo. In the election at the Alamo on February 1, 1836, John voted for Samuel Maverick and Jesse Badgett to be delegates to the convention for Texas independence. If there was a line in the sand, John stepped across it. Louis Rose later testified that he had left John Blair behind inside the fortress. John was one of the defenders of the Alamo who stood with Travis, Bowie and Crockett and made the ultimate sacrifice for the independence of their new country.

A few years later, Thomas Milligan Blair, John’s older brother, came to Texas with the family’s power of attorney to claim the land that the grateful republic had awarded John’s siblings for his service and sacrifice. In May of 1854, the family of John Blair, received a land patent which had been secured by John M. Stephen. On January 12, 1855, John’s family made a warrantee deed to Mister Stephen for the land which became the town of Stephenville, Texas. Even though it does not bear his name, the city of Stephenville is a fitting tribute to John Blair and the other Texian heroes who died with him at the Alamo.


Footnote:
This representation of the life of John Blair-Hero of the Alamo is based on both documented and non-documented sources and should not be used as any kind of factual documentation for any facet of his life or the lives of any other members of the Blair family. It is merely an attempt to paint a more human impression of this well known Blair ancestor whose service was instrumental in the Texas revolution.