E. James Blair, M. D., a well known and skilful physician and surgeon of Lawrence, was born in Cambridge, Guernsey county, Ohio, April 25, 1855. He is a son of Samuel and Martha (McDowell) Blair, who were born in Scotland, and came to the United States when quite young. They were married in this country, and in Guernsey county, Ohio, they spent their lives, devoted to farming, residing on the farm settled by Dr. Blair's paternal grandfather, John Blair. These parents had ten children, of whom Dr. E. James Blair is the third eldest. The father was a veteran of the Civil war, and died at the age of seventy-two.

Dr. Blair was reared to the farm life, and from the district schools of Ohio he went to the National Normal University, at Lebanon, Ohio, where he graduated in 1880. For six years he taught in the public schools of Ohio, and then took up the study of medicine. In 1882 he graduated in the medical department of the University of Louisville. He began the practice of medicine at Garner, Iowa, where he was division surgeon for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, and where he remained until 1891, in which year he located at Monmouth, Ill., from which city he came to Lawrence in 1903. He is a member of the Douglas county and the Kansas state medical societies, and of the American Medical Association. In politics the Doctor is a Republican; in church faith a Presbyterian, and fraternally, a Knight Templar and Thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. While residing in Monmouth, Ill., he served as senator of Monmouth College.

Dr. Blair has been twice married. In 1883 he married Melissa J. McKitrick, who died in 1905, leaving two sons—Clyde McKitrick, and James Stewart. In 1908 Dr. Blair married Cora McClaskey, daughter of J. R. McClaskey, of Lawrence. The Doctor's oldest son, Clyde McK., is superintendent of the Indian School at Albuquerque, N. M., and is a graduate of Monmouth College; was for two years a student in the University of Kansas, and for one year in the University of Chicago.