John C. Blair (1861-1942)
namesake of Blairs, Virginia. Portrait from 1920.

Among all of the communities throughout Pittsylvania County, Blairs was the most recent location to establish a post office back in 1927. In a recent endeavor to learn more about the little railroad village’s namesake, the paper trail revealed an interesting story of how the Blair family took their chances in the Wild West before returning to their homeland of Pittsylvania. 

In 1859, John Francis Blair left the rolling hills of Virginia, exchanging his fields of tobacco for the wild lands of the west. There was much potential in the undeveloped areas of Texas, which was granted statehood in 1845. John, along with his eight sons, two daughters, and extended family packed their wagons with their necessities and headed out on a major journey over a thousand miles long. With them came several other families in addition to ten enslaved people. Their caravan of about sixty souls traveled for two months across the Appalachian mountains, through Tennessee, Arkansas, and into northern Texas. Once they arrived at last, John acquired over a thousand acres of land in Grayson County and planned out the new farm. Several months into the settlement, a spell of Typhoid afflicted the bunch. After all of the effort in uprooting themselves and completing their unimaginable journey, John succumbed to the illness, along with his son John Henry, and they were buried in view of their future home in construction. 

John’s widow, Mrs. Christian “Kittie” Blair was the daughter of Capt. John Keen and Nancy Witcher (sister of Capt. Vincent Oliver Witcher) of Pittsylvania County. Ten months following her husband’s death, she too passed away after a bout of bad health at the age of fifty-one. After much tribulation and loss, the remaining siblings settled in and grew their families as young Texans. Many of the details of this journey come from a document written by John F. Blair’s great-great grandson, Henry A. Williams, in the 1940s.  

John and Kittie’s son, Charles W. Blair made the trip to Texas with his wife, former Miss Martha J. Guerrant. Her father Peter D. Guerrant was a well-known country doctor around Bachelor’s Hall. Just three months prior to the start of the Civil War in 1861, Martha gave birth to a little boy named John Christian Blair. He grew up on the farm, but lost his mother when he was seven years old. His father Charles continued to raise him and worked as a carpenter. The 1880 census lists Charles’s property between a druggist from Georgia and a saddle maker from Missouri. Overall, the family lived in Texas for about thirty years and decided to return home to Virginia around 1890. 

Settled back in Pittsylvania County, J. C. Blair married the former Miss Etta Stephens when she was sixteen years old. Through her mother, Mrs. Tabitha Beavers Stephens, she descended from Maj. William Beavers, owner of the old Beaver’s Tavern in the early 1800s. They built a new home in the general area the tavern once stood, presently indicated by a Virginia Historical Marker across from the post office. The 1910 census reveals that J. C. ran a country store and was raising five children with his wife Etta. Ten years later, he represented Virginia in the House of Delegates and became revered in his home community.

Originally, the railroad ran north from Danville and curved left, passing through Fall Creek Depot before crossing White Oak Mountain and running through Dry Fork Depot. In the 1920s, the line running through Fall Creek was discontinued, and a new rail ran north from Danville, but this time it curved to the right. The new route passed through the land of J. C. Blair to Dry Fork, creating much potential for business. In January 1927, “Bryant Brothers and Johnson” applied to create a new post office at their store and a depot 100 yards from the railroad. They appointed Burke O. Johnson as postmaster and named J. C. Blair as an agent for the Southern Railroad. The new office was named in honor of John Christian Blair and it stuck as the namesake for the whole community. Nearly a century later, Blairs Post Office still operates from a newer modern building.

1927 Map of Blairs Post Office showing the discontinued railroad route through Lima and Witt.