SAFFORD, William H. The Blennerhassett Papers, Embodying the Private Journal of Harman Blennerhassett, and the Hitherto Unpublished Correspondence of Burr, Alston, Comfort Tyler, Devereaux, Dayton, Adair, Miro, Emmett, Theodosia Burr Alston, Mrs Blennerhassett, and Others, Their Contemporaries; Developing the Purposes and Aims of those Engaged in the Attempted Wilkinson and Burr Revolution; Embracing also the First Account of the “Spanish Association of Kentucky” and a Memoir of Blennerhassett. With portraits.

Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin, 1864. pp. 655, 5 (publisher’s list). Modern black buckram, title in gilt on spine. A very good copy. Rare.

The Blennerhassett family is an English and Anglo-Irish noble family which has been involved in the politics of the Britain and Ireland since the fourteenth century. The male line of the family is extinct in Britain. In the reign of Elizabeth I the senior branch of the family under Robert Blennerhassett (accompanied by his elderly father Thomas) settled in County Kerry, during the Plantation of Munster. The family established themselves as part of the Anglo-Irish gentry, and under the Act of Settlement 1662 were granted 2,787 acres in County Kerry and 2,039 acres in County Cork. The marriage of Robert Blennerhassett to Avice Conway, the daughter and heiress of Edward Conway, brought the Blennerhassetts into the possession of Castle Conway in Killorglin, which would subsequently become the manor of the Blennerhassetts’ 7,000-acre Kerry estate. Numerous Blennerhassetts sat in the Irish House of Commons for the constituencies of Tralee and County Kerry, which were controlled by the family, and several also served as High Sheriff of Kerry.

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