OBIT: Samuel Steel BLAIR, 1890, Hollidaysburg, Blair County, PA

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HON. SAMUEL S. BLAIR
HIS DEATH AT HIS HOME IN HOLLIDAYSBURG.
After an Illness of Three Weeks He Passes Peacefully Away - As a Lawyer 
He Ranked With the Best in the State and as a Citizen His Private and 
Public Career Was Beyond Reproach.
OLDEST MEMBER OF THE BLAIR COUNTY BAR
A Sketch of His Life and Services by One Who Was Intimately Acquainted 
With Him.

  The following sketch of the life and character of Hon. Samuel Steel 
Blair, who died at Hollidaysburg yesterday, has been prepared for the 
TRIBUNE by Hon. John Dean:
  Mr. Blair died at 2 o'clock yesterday afternoon.  Some three weeks 
ago he caught a severe cold which resulted in apparently slight 
inflammation of the brain, but which every day thereafter seemed to 
grow worse.  He gradually sank until he breathed his last.  His death 
came as a severe shock to this community, where for more than forty 
years his prominent and useful life had been passed.
  He was born in the town of Indiana, Indiana county, in this state, 
December 5, 1821.  His father, Rev. David Blair, a Scotch Irishman, a 
native of county Antrim, Ireland, came to this country about the year 
1813.  He was a minister of the United Presbyterian church and was 
pastor of a church in Indiana county nearly all his life, and died 
there in 1882 at a very advanced age.  Early in his ministry he was 
married to Margaret Steel, daughter of Samuel Steel, of Huntingdon.  
They had ten children, only two of whom now survive - Mrs. Dr. Taylor 
and ex-Judge John P. Blair, of Indiana.
  Samuel Steel Blair, the subject of this notice, at the age of 11 
entered the Freshman class of Jefferson college, at Canonsburg, and in 
September, 1838, graduated.  Shortly after he went to Georgia, where, 
as principal of an academy, he taught for about three years.  He then 
accepted a clerkship in the United States mint at Dahlonega, and for 
about a year divided his time between the mint and teaching private 
classes.  In 1842 he returned to his home in Indiana, and in 1843 
commenced reading law in the office of Judge Thomas White, and was 
admitted to the bar of Indiana county in 1845.  On December 2, 1845, he 
was married to Sarah M., daughter of John Denniston, of Indiana.  In 
January, 1846, he removed to Hollidaysburg, which had just become the 
county seat of the then new county of Blair.  Ever since this has been 
his home.  At his death he was the oldest member of the Blair county 
bar.  There survive him his widow, Mrs. Sarah Blair; also children, 
Mrs. Eliza Randolph, of Altoona; Mrs. Sallie Moss, of Lewistown; John 
D. Blair, esq., of Hollidaysburg, and two grandchildren - Robert and 
Sarah Pettit, children of his deceased daughter, Mrs. Margaret Pettit.
  In 1858 he was chosen member of congress to represent the district 
composed of the counties of Blair, Huntingdon, Cambria and Somerset, 
and was re-elected in the same district in 1860.  In 1862, the district 
then being made up of Cambria, Blair, Huntingdon and Mifflin counties, 
he was defeated by a small majority by the democratic candidate, the 
late Hon. A. McAllister.  He was again nominated by the republican 
party for congress in the year 1874, in the district as at present 
constituted, but was defeated by the democratic candidate, Hon. John 
Reilly.  In political life Mr. Blair, especially in his earlier years, 
was active.  He was several times a delegate to state conventions and 
was a member of the national convention which nominated John C. 
Fremont, the first republican candidate for president, in 1856.  
  He was reared in the Presbyterian church and became a member of it 
some years after attaining manhood, and for twenty years was a ruling 
elder in that church, at Hollidaysburg.
  It seems to me the death and life of one so prominent in politics, in 
the law and the church, demands something more than a mere notice.  
Others know better than I the depth of his devotion as a husband, his 
never failing love as a father, his piety as a Christian; but as a 
lawyer and as a man, long association and intimate acquaintance enable 
me to speak of him with some degree of confidence.
  Mr. Blair had some peculiarities - it would be a mistake to call them 
defects - which, nevertheless, operated to some extent to hide the true 
man from the public and to render him less popular with the multitude 
than he deserved to be.  Though widely and favorably known, he was not 
well known outside the immediate circle of his family and intimate 
friends.  These last knew how generous, affectionate and gentle he was, 
how great was his benevolence, how numerous his charities, but others 
often misunderstood him and sometimes thought him cold.  Perhaps he did 
not know this, but it would have made no change in his conduct if he 
had known.  He would not have exhibited his virtues before the foot-
lights and called upon the audience to admire and applaud them.
  He scorned the demagogue and his arts, and would not take the side of 
any question which, from sincere conviction, he did not believe to be 
the right one.  He was not obsequious to the great nor would he court 
the multitude.  He fearlessly fell in on what seemed the right side, no 
matter how small was the minority, even if but himself against all the 
world; was at his best when fighting injustice or for the wronged, the 
weak or the innocent against overwhelming odds.  I do not recollect the 
time when he was not an abolitionist.  He advocated the cause of the 
slave when he incurred nothing but odium in so doing; when there were 
not fifty men in this county of any party who agreed with him.  Perhaps 
he occasionally carried his aversion to seeming to be what he was not 
to extremes.  I have known him to remain silent because of the 
vociferous popularity of some question of the hour; as everybody 
favored it, he would not proclaim his opinion, simply because it might 
look like a desire to be on the popular side.  Once I know, his silence 
subjected him to misrepresentation; popular belief counted him 
antagonistic when he really was in accord.
  He had an unwavering confidence in the correctness of his own 
judgment, whether on a political, legal or religious question.  He 
deferred to no court, whether lay or ecclesiastical; in behalf of his 
client was uncompromising; if a lower court did not concur with him he 
appealed to a higher one; if he failed there he submitted to the 
adverse judgment, but was not the less convinced that it was wrong and 
plainly said so.  The deliverance of a synod or an assembly rarely 
swerved him an inch from his settled belief on a theological or 
religious question.  Courts and assemblies might be wrong, but he, 
rejoicing in the acutest of intellects and resting on the 
conscientiousness of conviction, seldom doubted that he was right.
  Much of this phase of his character was probably hereditary.  It 
plainly pointed to the blood of the Scotch Covenanter in his veins, the 
stuff out of which heroes and martyrs are made, but not the stuff which 
in our day leads to office in the state.  Undoubtedly there are 
circumstances when this quality, inflexible adherence to one's opinion, 
is sublime; when the man's possessing it make his mark for all time.  
It was manifest in Gregory the Great, Martin Luther, John Knox, John 
Wesley, Thomas Jefferson and other great leaders and reformers.  With 
them the circumstances and the times afforded a favorable field for its 
exercise.  But in our day, in a democracy, with a high degree of 
intelligence and independent thought in the masses, instead of 
elevating its possessor, it often retards his advancement, if it does 
not keep him wholly in obscurity.  There are but few men to-day in 
representative public life who do not owe their elevation either to 
total subordination of individual opinion to the popular will, or to 
great deference to that will; had they attempted to lead, in most 
cases, they would have been sent to the rear.  So understanding this 
they complacently followed.  Mr. Blair was a pioneer in thought; he 
seldom followed.  Once in 1862, while he was a member of congress, I 
was selected to communicate to him the wish of a large number of his 
party that he should support a certain measure then pending.  I did so 
and at the same time expressed my belief that it was the sentiment of a 
large majority of his party.  He very firmly replied: "I will not vote 
their way; it is wrong; they can change their member at the proper 
time, but I shall not change my course."
  Morally, he was above reproach.  I do not mean by this that he was 
exempt from human infirmities of temper.  He was not a meek man and did 
not pretend to be.  When smitten on one cheek he did not turn the 
other.  Occasionally, under great provocation, he resented a wrong.  
But his life was pure, his motives unselfish, his aspirations noble.  
To the younger members of the bar his example of temperance, fidelity 
and zeal must always have inspired to a better life, to higher 
professional aims.
  As a lawyer, for a generation his superiority has not been 
questioned.  To mental endowments, by nature of a high order, were 
added all the advantages of a thorough education in the best schools 
and colleges of the day.  Better still, he never ceased to grow.  By 
inclination and habit studious, his professional acquirements became 
great.  At his death he was the best read lawyer in Middle 
Pennsylvania, if not in the state.  But he did not confine himself to 
the law; his studies extended over wide fields of literature.  He was 
thoroughly familiar with poetry and romance; those two favorites of the 
thorough English scholar, the Bible and Shakespeare, he seemed to have 
by heart.
  The true standard of comparison for a lawyer is his relation to his 
times and contemporaries.  When Mr. Blair came to the bar, he had as 
opponents such lawyers as John G. Miles, Judge Thomas White, Henry D. 
Foster, Samuel Calvin, David H. Hofius and men like unto them, all now, 
and many of them long since, dead.  Their professional reputation was 
established, yet in astuteness, knowledge of the law, logical 
exposition of legal principles, almost from the first, he was a match 
for any of them.  Then, he never went backward, or, which is the same 
thing, never stood still while younger men passed him.  With him it was 
always onward!  So that, in a profession which is noted for the 
keenness of intellectual struggles for pre-eminence, from his early 
manhood until his death his place was at the front.  His manner and 
methods in the court room excited admiration.  He made his client's 
cause his own; allowed nothing to stand in its way; unpopularity, 
personal friendship, were as nothing if they came between him and his 
idea of justice.  Intensely earnest, always clear, often profound, I 
feel sure he never lost a case he ought to have won.  He lost cases it 
is true, but they were such as even his great ability could not make 
appear meritorious before courts and juries.
  It is a train common to nearly all successful lawyers, in fact many 
good lawyers believe there cannot be success without it, to implicitly 
believe in the justice of their client's cause, and this to some extent 
is accompanied by an inability to see or comprehend the strength of the 
other side.  With Mr. Blair this belief never wavered in face of 
contradictory proofs, verdicts of juries or judgments of courts.  He 
probably died in the conviction that, with very few exceptions, all his 
lost cases ought to have been won, and would have been won if justice 
had been done.
  He is gone.  The unexpected death of one near to us, whose voice we 
heard daily, on whose friendship we leaned in times of trial, is always 
productive of sadness.  To fully realize that "the place which knew him 
once shall know him no more forever" is in itself suffering; but if the 
life of the dead one have been clean; if there have been no wrong-doing 
to apologize for, no vices to conceal or explain away, then, suffering 
is relieved by pleasant reflections on the life; then
   "There is no death!  What seems so is transition."
  It is with such sadness and such reflections that I have but too 
briefly sketched the good man and very imperfectly portrayed the 
eminent lawyer.                J. D.
  December 8, 1890.
                              _________  

  The funeral of Mr. Blair will take place at 3 o'clock Wednesday 
afternoon, the 10th.
  A preliminary meeting of the bar will be held at the library room in 
the court house at 10 o'clock a.m. on Wednesday, to appoint committees.
  A full meeting of the members of the bar of this and adjoining 
counties will be held in the court room at 1.30 p.m. of Wednesday, to 
take suitable action with reference to his death.

Morning Tribune, Altoona, Pa., Tuesday, December 9, 1890