William Blount - Family

Family

While the ancestry of the North Carolina Blounts is sketchy, 19th century historian John Hill Wheeler suggested they were among the state's oldest families, settling in the Pamlico River Valley as early as the 1670s.

Blount's father, Jacob (1726–1789), married Barbara Gray, the daughter of Scottish businessman John Gray, and they had seven children: William, Ann, John Gray, Louisa, Reading, Thomas, and Jacob. After Barbara Gray's death, Jacob married Hannah Salter, and they had five children, though only two lived to maturity: Willie and Sharp. Thomas Blount represented North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1790s and 1800s. Willie Blount was governor of Tennessee from 1809 to 1815.

William Blount married Mary Grainger in 1778, and they had six children: Ann, Mary Louisa, William Grainger, Richard Blackledge, Barbara and Eliza. William Grainger Blount represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1815 to 1819. Mary Louisa Blount was married to Congressman Pleasant Miller, and Barbara Blount was married to General Edmund P. Gaines.