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CABELL COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA
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Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by:
Tina Hursh
frog158@juno.com
September 29, 2000
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.
Chicago and New York, Volume 111
Pg. 370
Charles W. Blair has been active in insurance circles at Huntington and West
Virginia for nearly thirty years. He is senior member of the firm of Blair &
Bluffington, handling what is perhaps the largest business in fire insurance in
the city.
Mr. Blair is an Ohio man by birth, born at South Webster, Scioto County, March
14, 1867. His father, Joseph W. Blair, was born in Adams County of the same
state in 1832, and as a young man removed to Scioto County, where he married
and where for many years he conducted a mercantile store at Webster. He was a
republican, served several terms as township treasurer, and was a member of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. Joseph W. Blair, who died at Webster, Ohio, in
1887, married Harriet Cole, who was born in Scioto County in 1836 and died at
Wellston, Ohio, in 1918.
Charles W. Blair was educated in the public schools of Webster, and after he
was eighteen he taught three years in Scioto County, Ohio. He then removed to
Portsmouth, where for two years he was deputy county clerk, and left that
office to engage in the insurance business. He remained at Portsmouth until
1893, and in August of that year located at Huntington, where he has been a
busy member of insurance circles ever since. For a number of years he was an
independent adjuster of fire losses. Mr. Blair covered the West Virginia field
as special agent for on of the leading English companies for several years, and
his activities in both field work and local work has established his position as
one of the leading fire insurance men of the state. Some years ago he formed a
partnership with P.C. Buffington, under the name Blair & Buffington. They
handle general insurance, and represent some of the leading English and
American companies. The offices of the firm are in the First National Bank
Building. Mr. Blair is also secretary and treasurer of the Ophir Oil Company,
operating in the Eastern Kentucky field. In politics he is a republican, is a
member of the the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and fraternally is
affiliated with Huntington Lodge No. 53, A.F. and A.M., West Virginia
Consistory No. 1 of the Scottish Rite at Wheeling, Beni-Kedem Temple of the
Mystic Shrine of charleston, and is a member of Huntington Lodge No. 313,
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Guyandotte Club of Huntington.
He is a member also of the Allegheny and Cheat Mountain clubs of his state and
is an enthusiastic sportsman. His chief sport is fishing, and besides slipping
away from business whenever opportunity presents itself and trying his luck in
the West Virginia streams each year when summer vacation time comes he goes on
an annual camping and fishing trip to the Yellowstone Park and points in
Wyoming, up in the mountains, where the streams run clear and cold and where
the elusive Rainbow and Cutthroat Trout are to be found.
Mr. Blair married at Huntington in 1900 Miss Lide T. Thackston, daughter of
Benjamin H. and Eugenia (Miller) Thackston. K Mrs. Blair's father was one of
the early professors of Marshall College, and died in Huntington in 1918, at
the age of eighty-five years. Her mother is still living, residing with her
daughter in Huntington.
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