Harman Blennerhassett

Harman Blennerhassett (8 October 1764 – 2 February 1831) was an Anglo-Irish lawyer, a member of the Society of United Irishmen who emigrated in advance of their rebellion in 1798 to become a socially and politically distinguished plantation owner in then-western Virginia. Implicated in the Burr conspiracy, an alleged military plot with Britain to separate the Louisiana Territory from the American Union, he was twice arrested and financially ruined. His last years were spent in England. Life Harman Blennerhassett was born in Hampshire, England, to Conway Blennerhassett and his wife, Elizabeth Lacy. He was the grandson of Conway Blennerhassett and the great-great-grandson of Captain Robert Blennerhassett. At the age of two, Harman returned to the family's home in County Kerry, Ireland, a 7,000-acre estate called Castle Conway. As an adolescent, he was sent to Westminster School in London, and in 1784 entered the Middle Temple of London's famous Inns of Court. In 1790, he graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with a Bachelor of Laws, and started his practice at the Irish bar. Blennerhassett visited Paris in 1790; inherited the family estate in 1792; joined the secret Society of United Irishmen in 1793, which initially dedicated itself to reform, but later turned militantly radical; and in 1794 married Margaret Agnew, daughter of his sister Catherine and Major Robert Agnew, a career officer in the British army. Chiefly to escape involvement in the United Irishmen's planned rebellion against British rule, but also to conceal his incestuous marriage, Blennerhassett emigrated to the United States in 1796. There, on the western Virginia frontier, he bought the upper half of an Ohio River island lying downstream from what is now Parkersburg, West Virginia. It became the site of a European-style estate whose centrepiece was an enormous mansion surrounded by extravagantly landscaped lawns and gardens. For a brief period, the Blennerhassetts' home became famous as the largest, most beautiful private residence in the American West. The most distinguished of the Blennerhassetts' many visitors was the former vice president of the United States, Aaron Burr. His three stays on the island resulted in its becoming headquarters for his mysterious 1806–1807 military expedition to the Southwest, an alleged scheme to separate the Louisiana Territory from the American union with the assistance of the British.