WILLIAM BLOUNT
was born near Windsor, Bertie County, North Carolina, March 26, 1749; son of Jacob Blount
Sr. and his wife, Barbara Gray.†
William is described as having “received a good education for that day.” Married February 12, 1778, to
Mary Grainger, daughter of Caleb Grainger of Wilmington, New Hanover County, North Carolina; children-Anne, Mary
Louisa, William Grainger, Richard Blackledge, Barbara, and Eliza Blount.
In 1776 he entered the service of revolutionary North Carolina; served as Paymaster of the North Carolina
Militia and 3rd Regimental Continental Troops during the Revolutionary War, and thereafter, for the remainder
of his life, was almost continually in public office.
In addition, the Blounts were successful and influential merchants.
William Blount and his brothers, John Gray, Reading, Thomas, Jacob Jr., and his half brothers Willie and Sharpe Blount
controlled vast tracts of land in North Carolina and Tennessee and became one of the wealthiest landholding families
in nineteenth century America. William is credited with obtaining free use of the Mississippi River, then controlled
by Spain.
William Blount held the following: North Carolina House of Commons, 1780-1784; delegate from North Carolina to U.S.
Continental Congress, 1782-83, 1786-87; delegate from North Carolina to U.S. Constitutional Convention, 1787;
member Senate of North Carolina General Assembly, 1788-1790; member North Carolina Convention of 1789, called
to ratify U.S. Constitution.
In 1790, President Washington appointed him governor of the newly formed
Territory South of the River Ohio (a.k.a. Southwest Territory), formerly part of North Carolina, a position he held
until 1796. While governor, Blount was also superintendent of Indian Affairs and negotiated, among others, the Treaty
of the Holston with the Cherokees. His new government faced formidable problems, intensified by conflicts created
by White/Indian contact.
In 1795, Blount called a constitutional convention to organize the state, served as president of the
Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1796; Tennessee entered the Union that year as the 16th state.
Blount was elected by Tennessee legislature to U.S. Senate and served from August 2, 1796, to July 8,
1797, when he was expelled from that body on a conspiracy charge, a “high misdemeanor.”
He served in the Tennessee Senate, 2nd Session of 2nd General Assembly, December 3, 1798-September 15,
1799, representing Knox County. He was elected to fill vacancy created by resignation of James White; the
latter had been speaker of the Senate and Blount was elected to hold that post. His election to State Senate
so soon after expulsion from U.S. Senate intended as token of confidence by people of Tennessee. Blount had
large holdings of land in western country and has been called one of the major land speculators of his time;
president company organized in 1783 for promotion of the “Muscle Shoals Scheme” to develop lands
lying in the Great Bend of the Tennessee River (in present day Alabama, but then Georgia’s western
lands).
William Bount died at Knoxville March 21, 1800; buried in churchyard of First Presbyterian Church.
Mary Grainger Blount, William’s wife died in 1802 and is buried beside her husband.
William Bount was the father of William Grainger Blount, and half-brother of Willie Blount. William
Grainger Blount and Willie Blount both served as sometime members Tennessee General Assembly. Willie Blount
served as Governor of Tennessee, 1809-1815.
Bibliography
Sources: Dictionary of American Biography; Biographical Directory of American Congress; Rothrock, The
French Broad - Holston Country, 381-82; Abernethy, From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee, 21, 51ff,
76, 168; Driver, John Sevier, 61, 70, 75; Armstrong, Notable Southern Families, 1, 35-36; Senate and House
Journals, 2nd General Assembly, 1797-98, p. 269; Knoxville Daily Chronicle, July 8, 1871.
†† Note: Children of Jacob Blount Sr. and his first wife, Barbara
Gray: William, John Gray, Louisa, Reading, Thomas, Barbara, and Jacob Blount Jr.
Children of Jacob Blount Sr.
and his second wife, Hannah Salter: Willie, Sharpe, and Harvey Blount.
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