Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 150, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1904 — JAMES L. BLAIR PASSES AWAY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JAMES L. BLAIR PASSES AWAY.

St. Louis Man Under a Cloud Dies at Eustis, Fla. James L. Blair, former counsel for the world’s fair and the central figure in a big embezzlement scandal in St. Louis,

died at Eustis, Fla., Saturday evening. He had previously been taken with a congestive chill and 11 ever recovered. Mrs. Blair and their son Perry were with -him at the time of his death. Mr. Blair, who had been one of the foremost lawyers Land reformers in St.

J. 1.. Blair. Lottis, was charged a short time ago by a former employe with the embezzlement of large sums of money that bad been intrusted to hita. Mr. Blair undertook to fight the charges and then broke down. It is alleged that he twice attempted suicide, but the fact has not been fully verified. His country house in the suburbs was dismantled and everything of value, including his horses and carriages, sold. Mrs. Blair, who was president of the board of lady managers of the world’s fair, resigned and devoted herself to nursing her husband. In the meantime insurance companies Tn' earned nearly Si,<XXJ,OOO worth of insurance began to contest the policies on the ground that he had taken them out for the purpose of defrauding the companies by killing himself. The eases are still pending in the federal courts. Mr. Blair was born in St. Louis in 1854. He was the third son of (Sen. Francis Blair and the grandson of Francis Preston Blair of Washington, D. C., a friend of Lincoln and Jackson.