A Blount Family Tree

William Blount was an inveterate land speculator and one of the most corrupt of all the US treaty signers. As governor of Southwest Territory (which became Tennessee) he acquired millions of acres, often through fraud. Later, as a US Senator from Tennessee, he committed treason in the Chisholm-Romayne conspiracy, trying to mount an illegal attack on Spanish Florida, and was the subject of the first impeachment in US history. Joseph McMinn was the fourth person to serve as Governor of Tennessee. Daughers of both McMinn and Blount married into the prominent Gaines family. Their brother-in-law George Gaines was an Indian agent who superintended Choctaw removal.