Blair, John

1732 - Born in Williamsburg.

1754 - He graduated from the College of William and Mary and he then studied law at Oxford's Middle Temple, in London.

1756 - Returned to Virginia with his Scottish wife, Jean Balfour, and began a successful law practice in Williamsburg.

1766-1770 - He served in the House of Burgesses as a representative of William and Mary.

1770-1775 - He served as clerk of the governor's council.

1776 - He attended the Virginia Constitutional Convention and the Virginia Privy Council.

1778-1780 - He became a judge on the newly established Virginia General Court.

1782 - He concluded that courts were entitled to review state legislation and to invalidate any laws found unconstitutional.

1787 - He served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

1789 - Received his greatest judicial honor when President Washington nominated him, along with five other men, to the first High Court on the 24th of September.

1796 - Retired from the High Court on the 27th January, citing the stress of serving on both the Supreme Court and the circuit court, which in Blair's case stretched from New Jersey to Virginia. 

1800 - He died in his native Williamsburg at age sixty-eight.