Charles B. Blair, who has been in active practice at the bar of Grand Rapids since 1883, was born in this city January 3, 1858, a son of James and Eliza (Turner) Blair, who were respectively of ‘Scotch extraction remotely on the paternal and Scotch-Irish and English descent on the maternal side, although the Blair family were very early settlers in the state of New York, and the Turner family equally as early settlers in Connecticut. James Blair came to Grand Rapids in 1842, was first employed as a clerk, and later engaged in general merchandising on his own. He began the study of law under Col. Gray, was admitted to the bar in 1871, and became very prominent in the profession as the head of the firm of Blair, Kingsley & Kleinham. In politics he was a stanch democrat, was elected city clerk when a young man, and later was a member of the board of education for eleven years, serving several terms as its president. He was a delegate to the democratic national convention at Cincinnati and that at St. Louis, and was four years postmaster at Grand Rapids under the administration of President Grover Cleveland. To his marriage with Miss Turner were born three children, viz: Charles B., the subject of this memoir; James B., now in South America, in the coffee trade, and Hugh, a bookkeeper in the Kent County Savings Bank at Grand Rapids. The father of this family was called away, while still in the active practice of his profession, December 18, 1892, and his widow still resides in the Valley City. Charles B. Blair attended public school in Grand Rapids until he was fourteen years of age and then entered the Yonkers (N.Y.) Military institute, where he remained one year, thence he went to Devoe college, at Suspeension Bridge, N. Y., and thence, in 1876, to Harvard university, from which he graduated in literature, with all the honors, in 1880. For a short time thereafter he studied law with his father in Grand Rapids, preparatory to entering the law department of the university of Michigan at Ann Arbor, in 1881, and from this famous institution he graduated in March, 1882, and next entered the Harvard law school, anticipating the first year’s work there, but did not remain to be graduated. In August, 1883, he was admitted to the bar at Grand Rapids, and was practice here with his father until the latter’s death, since when he has practiced alone. June 5, 1889, Mr. Blair was most happily united in marriage with Miss Emma Covode, who was born in Westmoreland county, Pa., April 25, 1864, a daughter of John Covode, an ex-member of congress, and the father of John A. Covode, the prominent banker. To the felicitous union of Mr. and Mrs. Blair have been born four children, viz: Charles Covode, April 12, 1890; Margaret, March 3, 1892; John Covode, April 17, 1895, and James, January 22, 1897. Mr. and Mrs. Blair are members of the Park Congregational church, and in politics Mr. Blair is a very active gold democrat. He was appointed referee in bankruptcy, by Judge Severus, in October, 1898, and the duties of this office, together with those of his extensive law practice, make him a rather busy man. He stands very high in the esteem of his fellow practitioners as well as of the public, and socially he and wife are of the elite of Grand Rapids.