John Adair

John Adair was born in 1757 in Chester County, South Carolina. He enlisted in the South Carolina colonial militia at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Adair served as a captain in the Northwest Indian War. He was elected to a total of eight terms in the state House of Representatives between 1793 and 1803. In 1820, he was elected eighth governor on a platform of financial relief for Kentuckians hit hard by the Panic of 1819, and the ensuing economic recession.

About John Adair in brief

Summary John AdairJohn Adair was born in 1757 in Chester County, South Carolina. He enlisted in the South Carolina colonial militia at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Adair served as a captain in the Northwest Indian War. He was elected to a total of eight terms in the state House of Representatives between 1793 and 1803. In 1820, he was elected eighth governor on a platform of financial relief for Kentuckians hit hard by the Panic of 1819, and the ensuing economic recession. He served one undistinguished term in the United States House of Representative and did not run for re-election. In 1784, Adair married Katherine Palmer, with whom he had 12 children. One of them, Thomas Bell Monroe, later served as Secretary of State and was appointed to a federal judgeship. He died in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1883. He is buried in the Kentucky State Cemetery. He also served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky from 1788 to 1791. He had a daughter, Katherine Palmer Adair, who later became the first female governor of Kentucky. He never had children of his own and died in 1881. He left a fortune in real estate and real estate investments, including a mansion and a farm in Kentucky, which he died in in 1891. His son, John Adair Jr., was a member of the Kentucky House of Reps. and served as Speaker of the House from 1802 to 1803, and was a delegate to the state’s Second Constitutional Convention in 1799.

He fought in the Battle of Eutaw Springs, the war’s last major battle in the Carolinas, in 1781. During the Revolutionary War he was twice captured and held as a prisoner of war by the British. After the war, he served in South Carolina’s convention to ratify the United United States Constitution. In the War of 1812, he fought in Kentucky’s defense of Kentucky’s soldiers against General Andrew Jackson’s charges that they showed cowardice at theBattle of New Orleans. He returned to the State House in 1817, and Isaac Shelby, his commanding officer in the War who was serving a second term as governor, appointed him adjutant general of the state militia. He went on to serve as Kentucky’s governor from 1817 to 1820. He retired from politics in 1820 after being implicated in a treason conspiracy involving Vice President Aaron Burr, but he was acquitted of any wrongdoing and his accuser, General James Wilkinson, was ordered to issue an apology. He later became a judge for the Kentucky Court of Appeals, touching off the Old Court–New Court controversy. His daughter Katherine Palmer later became one of the first women to be elected as a federal judge, and she served as secretary of state for the eastern district of Kentucky until her husband’s death in 1884. His grandson, Thomas Adair Monroe, was elected as the first African-American to serve on the Kentucky Supreme Court in 1786.