Wood County WV Archives Biographies.....Blennerhassett, Harman 
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Alice Warner Brosey http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00015.html#0003503 April 22, 2010, 10:10 am

Source: History Of West Virginia In Two Parts
Author: Virgil A. Lewis

Harman Blennerhassett was a representative of a distinguished and wealthy Irish
family, but was born in England during the temporary residence of his parents in
that country. He began his education in England, but graduated at the University
of Dublin, after which he entered the profession of law. In England, he married
Miss Adeline Agnew, who was a granddaughter of General Agnew, who was with Wolfe
at Quebec. Soon after he sold his estate in Ireland and sailed for America,
landing at New York, where he was hospitably received by the first families. In
1797, he journeyed to Philadelphia, and from there came to Marietta in 1798.
Having purchased the beautiful island which now bears his name, he began the
erection of a splendid mansion, the architect being a Mr. Greene of New Castle,
Pennsylvania, and the carpenters coming from Philadelphia.

[illustration woodcut of the Blennerhassett Mansion]

Harman Blennerhassett was an accomplished scholar, well versed in mathematics
and languages and possessed of refined tastes and manners. So perfect was his
memory, that it is said he could repeat the whole of Homer's Iliad in the
original Greek. He brought with him to his island home a library of choice and
valuable works and a complete set of chemical apparatus and philosophical
instruments, to the accommodation of which one wing of the mansion was
appropriated. Possessed of an ample fortune to supply every want, a beautiful
and accomplished wife and lovely children, he was surrounded with everything
which can make life desirable and happy. The adjacent settlements of Belpre,
Parkersburg, and the more distant one of Marietta, although buried in the heart
of the wilderness, contained many men of cultivated minds and refined manners,
with whom he held constant and familiar intercourse, so that there was lacking
none of the social advantages which his remote and insular situation would seem
to indicate. Beneath his hospitable roof were many merry gatherings of the
people of these towns, when song and dance echoed through the halls.

In 1805, Aaron Burr, the slayer of Alexander Hamilton, when descending the Ohio,
landed uninvited upon the island, but met with a cordial reception. He remained
only three days, but that was too long. In this short period he succeeded in
enticing the unsuspecting Blennerhassett into his plans. These were to settle an
armed force on the Wichita, for the purpose of colonizing that region, and, in
the event of a war between Spain and the United States — at that time threatened
— to conquer Mexico. To Burr, Blennerhassett advanced large sums of money, the
former giving as his security his son-in-law, Joseph Alston, afterward Governor
of South Carolina. The scheme progressed, and in the meantime Blennerhassett had
a flotilla of small boats, about twenty in number, built at Marietta, destined
for use in the southern expedition. The peculiar form of the boats excited
apprehension, but there was no interference, and on a December evening in 1806,
with supplies and thirty men on board, the fleet began the descent of the river.
On the same day Colonel Hugh Phelps, commandant of the Wood county militia,
received orders to arrest Blennerhassett and his associates. Late at night, with
a body of the military, he proceeded to the island; but it was too late. Colonel
Phelps at once began an overland journey to Point Pleasant, hoping to intercept
the boats at that place, but they had passed when he arrived. The troops were
met by Mrs. Blennerhassett, who forbade them touching anything not named in the
warrant. But the mob spirit ran riot, the well-stored cellars were assailed, the
mansion sacked, balls fired into the rich gilded ceilings, fences pulled down to
light the sentinel fires and the shrubbery trampled under foot. By the aid of
friends, Mrs. Blennerhassett was enabled a few days later to embark on a
flatboat with her two children and black servants, and finally joined her
husband at Louisville. Well might they look with grief in after years to the
fair Eden from which they had been driven by their own indiscretion and the
deception of Aaron Burr.

In the year 1812, the mansion was destroyed by an accidental fire; the garden
with its beautiful shrubbery and rare plants was converted into a cornfield; the
graveled avenue leading to the river was turned by the plowshare, and since that
time nothing remains of the once beautiful home of Harman Blennerhassett save
the name. More than fourscore years have passed away since the once happy
occupants left it, still the thousands of travelers who annually pass it by rail
and river, eagerly inquire after and gaze with pathetic interest upon the island.

Burr and Blennerhassett were both arrested, taken to Richmond and confined in
the penitentiary. The former was acquitted and the latter never brought to
trial. Blennerhassett and his family afterward went to Europe, where he died on
the island of Guernsey, at the age of sixty-three years. The widow afterward
returned to the United States and died in great poverty in New York, in 1842.
But one representative of the family is now known to be in this country — that
the wife of Joseph Lewis Blennerhassett, now residing at Troy, Missouri.



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