Home › B › Blair (JOHN INSLEY an American)

Blair (JOHN INSLEY an American)

JOHN INSLEY, an American philanthropist, born in Belvidere, N. J., Aug. 22, 1802; was in early life a merchant and banker; subsequently becoming the individual owner of more miles of railroad property than any other man in the world. He acquired a very large fortune; loaned the Federal Government more than $1,000,000 in the early part of the Civil War; built and endowed, at a cost of more than $600,000, the Presbyterian Academy in Blairstown, N. J.; rebuilt Grinnell College, Iowa; erected Blair Hall and made other gifts to Princeton University; was equally liberal to Lafayette College; and had erected more than 100 churches in differ- BLAIR ent parts of the West, besides laying out many towns and villages on the lines of his numerous railroads. He died in Blairstown, N. J., Dec. 2, 1899.