James Blood
Constitutional Delegate. Born: March 21, 1819, Bolton Vermont. Married: Eliza J., 1853. Died: February 4, 1891, Lawrence, Kansas.
Born in Bolton, Vermont, on March 21, 1819, James Blood spent part of his youth in New York and then moved to Wisconsin where he established his own business. He married Eliza J. _______, who was thirteen years his junior (ca. 1853) and moved to Kansas from Wisconsin in 1854. As "agent for Amos A. Lawrence," Blood was involved with the first party of New England Emigrant Aid Company settlers who arrived in late July. Blood was actively engaged from the beginning in the free-state movement and firmly identified with the Charles Robinson faction: "Mr. Blood was a good man, but a pronounced enemy of [James H.] Lane and an adherent of Governor Robinson." He served as treasurer of the Kansas State Central Committee, 1856-1857, as a member of the Topeka legislature, 1856, as the first mayor of Lawrence in 1857, as a member of the central territorial committee at the Republican Party's organizing convention in May 1859, as county treasurer in the early 1860s, and as a representative from Lawrence in the 1869 state legislature. He died in Lawrence on February 4, 1891.
A member of the Wyandotte Convention's corporation and banking and ordinance and public debt committees, James Blood was actively involved in floor debate from the outset. He engaged his fellow delegates in discussion of Kansas banks, the judicial system, education, and seemingly every other issue that came before the assembled delegates.
Entry: Blood, James
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: June 2011
Date Modified: March 2013
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