did not leave his property to his sons, but to these two grandsons, (1)
Ephraim, who remained in Carlisle, and (2) Ephraim Lyon Blaine, who grew
up in western Pennsylvania. Ephraim Lyon Blaine was named for his
mother, Miss Lyon, the daughter of Samuel Lyon from about Carlisle.
Ephraim Lyon Blaine married Miss Gillespie, a devout member of the Roman
Catholic Church, but most of their seven children--five boys and two
girls--adhered to the traditional faith of the Blaines. The second of
these sons, James Gillespie Blaine, is the subject of this sketch. He
would have inherited large blended fortunes, had not his father, like
his grandfather, been a spendthrift. Therefore, soon after James G.
Blaine was born his parents had to move out of the big house which they
could no longer keep up, and occupy a frame-house called the Pringle
dwelling, also in West Brownsville, about a quarter of a mile distant.
Here young Elaine lived and went to school both in Brownsville and in
West Brownsville, until his father was elected prothonotary of the
county, in 1843, when the whole family removed to Little Washington,
twenty-four miles distant.

James G. entered Washington College in 1843, being then thirteen years
of age, and became at once prominent as a scholar among the two or three
hundred other lads from all parts of the country. He was also a leader
in athletic sports. He was not a bookworm, but he was a close student
and possessed the happy faculty of assimilating knowledge from books and
tutors far more easily and quickly than most of his fellows. In
debating-societies he held his own well, and was conspicuous by his
ability to control and direct others.

After leaving college young Blaine started for Kentucky to carve out his
own fortune. He went to Blue Lick Springs and became a professor in the
Western Military Institute, in which there were about four hundred and