The Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia borders Maryland and Virginia. The first European settlers started arriving about 1730.
The New River flows through North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia .In 1755, Mary Draper Ingles (1732-1815) was captured by Shawnee warriors near Blacksburg and taken to Ohio. She escaped and made her way home by following the Ohio, Kanawha, and New Rivers.
John Blue, Sr. was born abourt 1713 in New Jersey.
He married Mary Marshall. Mary was born about 1717.
John and Mary's children included:
John Blue, Jr. (1740).
Uriah Blue (1746, married Susannah Williams),
Michael Blue (1748, married Mary Herriot), and
Garrett Blue (1753, married Mary Marshall and Elizabeth Duke daughter of John Duke).
His second wife was probably Margaret Keyser. Margaret was born about 1736.
John and Margaret's children probably included:
Abraham Blue (1759),
Peter Blue (1762, married Susannah Kelch).
Jacob Blue (1770),
Benjamin Blue (1772),
David Blue (1774),
Hannah Blue (1779),
Margaret Blue (1781)
William Blue (1784),
Jesse Blue (1787), and
Elizabeth Blue (1789, married Isaac Woods).
About 1754, John Blue was granted 27, 304 acres on the South Branch of the Potomac River in Hampshire County, Virginia (now West Virginia)
In 1782, Michael, Uriah, James?, Abraham, John Blue, Sr. and Jr. were in the census of Hampshire County, Virginia.
In 1790, John Blue was captain of the militia. His brothers, Jacob, Abraham, and Garrett were in the same unit.
John will was proved on April 14, 1791. He divided his land between his four oldest sons who were directed to pay money to the ten other children.
Appalachia was the 18th century backcountry and many settlers were Scots-Irish. It includes southern New York, western Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia, West Virginia, eastern Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee and northern Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
from Early Records, Hampshire County, Virginia: Now West Virginia,
Blue, John. Sr. 10 -16-1790
pr. 4. 14-1791
W., Margaret
12 ch. Uriah, Abraham, Peter, John, Elizabeth, Jacob, David, Michael, Benjamin, William, Jesse, Garrat, Margaret, Hannah
Exec., Uriah and John Blue
Sec., David Forman and Stephen Calvin.
Wit., David Long, William ?inton, Isaac Daton.
Mentions Job Welton-land he bought
from History of Hampshire County, West Virginia by Hu Maxwell and H. L. Swisher
The Blue family were among the earliest settlers in Hampshire County, if not the very earliest. There were three brothers, John, Uriah, and Michael, the two latter making their homes near Shepherdstown, while John settled about five miles north of Romney, and was the founder ot the Blue family in Hampshire County. They came from New Jersey to Virgina early in the seventeenth century. They came to New Jersey from Holland in the early years of the colonization of the United States. They were, therefore, among the pioneers upon the Western Continent; and in all the generations since then they have been influential and useful citizens. The family, so far as their history can be traced in Holland, were in affluent circumstances.
The date at which John Blue came to Hampshire County is fixed partly by tradition and partly by family record. His son John (grandfather of the present John Blue) was twelve years old when he came with his father to Hampshire. He died in 1791, aged seventy-eight years. That would prove that he came to Hampshire in 1725. If such was the case, he was about eight or ten years earlier than the usually accepted earliest settlement of the South Branch Valley.
This John Blue, who died in 1791, left his property by will to his wife and his thirteen children. The names of these children were as follows: Uriah, Abraham, John, Jacob, David, Michael, Garrett, William, Jesse, Benjamin, Elizabeth, Hannah, and Margaret.
