Duncan Blair
Born in 1815 in Strachur, Argyllshire, Rev. Duncan B. Blair moved in early childhood to the Ardgour area and subsequently to Badenoch. He entered Divinity Hall in Edinburgh in 1840 and was licensed to preach in 1844. He was in Mull in 1845, but moved to Pictou, Nova Scotia, the following year. He was in Ontario from May 1847 to October 1848. He returned to Scotland and married Mary Sibella MacLean in 1851, then came back to Canada as minister of the Presbyterian congregation of Barney’s River and Blue Mountain, Pictou County. He died in 1893. Alexander MacLean Sinclair described Blair as “an excellent linguist, a good poet, and a devout man. As an accurate writer of Gaelic he had no superior.” In Gaelic, Blair composed sacred poems, laments and secular poems and songs, totalling some 16,650 lines. His contribution to Mac-Talla was extensive during a short period of time.
