Ephraim Blaine

Ephraim Blaine was born in Londonderry, Ireland, in 1741 to Isabella and James Blaine. The family immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1745. They first lived in Donegal, now in Butler County, but moved shortly thereafter to Toboyne Township, now in Perry County. James was the first Blaine to move to the area but was later joined by several of his siblings. He acquired significant tracts of land where the family kept horses, cattle, and sheep.

For his education, Ephraim Blaine moved eastward and attended the Academy of the Reverend Francis Allison at New London, an institution which became part of what is now the University of Pennsylvania. After this, Blaine moved west. His early career began in what is now Pittsburgh where 1761 census records show he was the head of a two-man household. He worked as a trader and a horsemaster. In 1765, he married his first wife, Rebecca Galbraith, who was the stepdaughter of one of his close friends. They had two sons, James and Robert, and in 1771 they moved to a large farm of at least fifty acres near modern-day Harrisburg. In the same year, Blaine was taxed for two servants who may have been enslaved. He was a well-known and active member of the community. From 1771 to 1774, he served as the sheriff of Cumberland County.

The Blaine family moved several more times but always lived on large farms that were taxed for livestock and subsistence agriculture. They eventually settled in Carlisle. Throughout his life and career, Blaine profited from the labor of those he employed and enslaved. For example, in the same year as his marriage to Rebecca, Blaine issued a reward for the return of his Irish servant, Michael Futrill. In 1777, Blaine enslaved a family that had been purchased by Colonel Joseph Hugg. In 1780, after Pennsylvania had passed an act to gradually abolish slavery, Blaine posted a five-hundred-dollar reward for the return of an enslaved man named Sam, who had run away. Similarly, in 1784 Blaine posted an ad in several local newspapers for the sale of two unnamed enslaved people, one man and one woman.

Blaine played an active role throughout the Revolutionary War. In 1774, the Boston Port Act closed the harbor to all commerce and instituted large fines against the city’s population in reaction to the Boston Tea Party. Many Americans were enraged and began to consider retaliatory actions. Blaine was involved in a meeting of community leaders that resolved to create a Committee of Correspondence to facilitate communication across Pennsylvania. These networks helped to transfer key pieces of information across the colonies. The committee also decided that Blaine and several others would serve as delegates in the 1775 Provincial Convention.

Blaine came to be recognized as a skilled logistician. His prior experience with managing the people he employed/enslaved translated into an ability to recognize troops’ needs. He also had resources to facilitate moving products. Of similar importance was Blaine’s location. In 1776, the Continental Congress established an ordnance center at the Carlisle Barracks, which serves today as the Army War College.

Blaine began requesting resources for troops as early as July 1776. However, he was only officially elected as the Deputy Commissary General in 1777. In his new position, he helped provide the Continental Army with food, supplies, and other resources. Ensuring that the soldiers had everything necessary to fight took significant ingenuity. One example of this was Blaine’s decision to stop having cattle accompany troops on the march, which required soldiers to forage to feed them. As a result, the animals were often undernourished. Blaine’s reorganization instead had cattle slaughtered in one location and the meat salted to prevent spoilage. Thus, larger quantities of meat were available to send by wagon to the soldiers’ locations. Notably, Blaine was the Commissary General at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777. Despite his earlier successes, feeding the Continental Army was a gargantuan task. At Valley Forge, and throughout the war, soldiers regularly went for days at a time without receiving rations. Records indicate that Blaine sent letters to Congress and corresponded regularly with George Washington to request more resources.

Like many Americans during the war, Blaine struggled both professionally and personally. The economic realities of the American Revolution strained both troops and officers. Records indicate that Blaine was sometimes forced to advance his own money when purchasing supplies for the army. In 1778, he applied for and was granted a loan of four hundred dollars (just under $10,000 in 2024). In 1779, he was forced to sell some of his property which by then had expanded up to seven thousand acres. Eventually, he received compensation from the new American government in part for his time and his purchases.

Blaine retired from his role as Commissary General in 1782 and returned to trading. Additionally, he continued to purchase real estate. Estimates put his holdings at over ten thousand acres at the time of his death. Although he never worked for the government again, he remained close to some of his former colleagues. In 1794, while gathering a force to handle the Whiskey Rebellion, George Washington spent a week in Carlisle and stayed in one of Blaine’s homes. They reportedly remained friends until Washington’s death.

Blaine’s first wife Rebecca passed away in 1795; in 1797 he married Sarah Duncan. They had one son named Ephraim, Jr. The senior Blaine passed away in 1804 at the age of 63. His most notable descendant is James G. Blaine, who became the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in 1869, served in the United States Senate in 1876, and ran as the Republican candidate for President in 1884.