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Sarah A. Boyd ~ Dr. Patrick Blue

Bullock County, Alabama

Dr. Patrick Blue, now one of the most prominent merchants of Union Springs, Ala., was born in Monroe county, N. C.; in 1834, a son of Hector and Mary (McKinnon) Blue, both of whom were natives of the state named. In 1835, the family came to Alabama and settled in the woods of Pike (now Bullock) county. Hector Blue took part in. the Indian war of 1836, and was always ready to perform the duty of a good citizen, although he never sought an office. He led the life of an honest, industrious man, and consequently successful planter, and died in, the Presbyterian faith, in 1878, at the age of seventy-six years, his widow being laid by his side in 1884, at the age of seventy-two. Hector Blue was a son of Peter Blue, a native of Scotland, but a resident for many years of North Carolina, where his death occurred. Of his six sons, all but one became citizens of Alabama. The maternal grandfather of Dr. Blue was John McKinnon, a native of North Carolina, of Scotch descent. He came to Alabama in 1835, and settled in Pike county, where he passed the remainder of his years in following his calling of planter.

Dr. Patrick Blue is a member of a family of eight children, comprising six boys and two girls. Of these the boys all were soldiers: Duncan, a lawyer by profession, served in the Confederate service one year at Pensacola, Fla., and then joined the Fifty-third Alabama volunteers and served until the close of the war, dying afterward in Texas; Hector also served his first year in the army at Pensacola, and then in the army of Virginia until the end of hostilities; John served with Gen. J. E. Johnston's command all the way through, and was killed by a runaway horse about 1880; Archie served under Gen. Johnston to the close of hostilities, and Eugene did the same under Joe Wheeler. The doctor passed his youthful days on the home farm, performing such duties as usually fall to the lot of farmer lads and attending school at the proper time. In 1855 and 1856 he attended the medical college of Charleston, S. C., graduated, and then practiced at Geneva, Ala., until 1862, when he joined the Fifty-third Alabama regiment and served as steward and acting assistant surgeon in the army of Atlanta, and after the fall of the latter place, was left to watch the movements of Sherman; some time later he was sent to South Carolina, and was at Statesburg at the time of the final surrender. He was never captured nor wounded, nor ever away from his post of duty, excepting on one occasion, when he was at home a short time, on a furlough; all his brothers, however, were wounded, so that, there was plenty of the Blue blood shed in the Confederate cause. After the war, the doctor passed a year in practice at his old home in Pike county, and then, in 1867, located at Inverness, where he engaged in merchandising with a brother, and also practiced medicine, until 1871, when he settled in Union Springs, where he has since devoted his attention exclusively to his business as a merchant, being now one of the most extensive traders in the county. The doctor is also a stockholder in the Union Springs cotton mill, and with brother, Hector, is engaged in merchandising at Omega. He also is occupied extensively in planting.

The doctor was united in marriage, in 1869, with Miss Sarah A. BOYD, daughter of Robert Boyd, who came from Georgia to Alabama and died in this state in 1886. The doctor had the misfortune to lose his wife in 1889. She was a native of this state, was a Presbyterian for many years, and was the mother of five children; two are dead and three living: Ernest L., a rising young lawyer of Union Springs, who graduated at Clarksville, Tenn., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., and before he was twenty-one years old he was appointed receiver; the second child is Hector P., and the third is Mary M. The doctor is a self-made man, as he started his business life with almost nothing, and what he now has is the result of his, own effort and business talent. His example is certainly worthy the emulation of the youth of the entire state.

 
Source: Memorial record of Alabama : a concise account of the state's political, military, professional and industrial progress, together with the personal memoirs of many of its people; Madison, Wisconsin : Brant and Fuller, 1893. FHL Film 934817
 

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