“Among the passengers who alighted from the B&O SW accommodation last Saturday morning was John Blondon, of East Tenth street. Mr. Blondon ware returning from a month’s visit with Maryland relatives. The circumstances of his visit have been previously published. It will be remembered that Blondon, who was a Marylander, left home in 1860, served in the Union army and ultimately came to Ohio. He located in Portsmouth in 1870, and has lived here continuously ever since. In all the years since he left home Mr. Blondon did not write his people. A short time ago Mr. Blondon decided to go to Maryland and look up his people, and accordingly left for Baltimore December 2nd. His parents lived near Middleburg, forty-one miles east of Baltimore. When Blondon arrived there he found that both his father1 and step-mother2 (his mother3 died before he left home) had died just two weeks before within a few days of each other. His father had become quite wealthy bus supposing John dead had willed all his property to a distant relative.”
“Mr. Blondon when seen by a Times reporter said that his father’s estate consisted of two fine farms, several thousand dollars in cash and some bank stock the entire estate being appraised at about $35,000. His father willed all this to Mr. Blondon’s cousin, supposing all his own children dead. In his will he mentioned the fact that his son John Blondon had disappeared and joined the Union army and said that as he had not been heard from for upward of thirty years he was ‘either dead or lost beyond all hopes of recovery’ and so the property was bequethed as above stated.’
‘Mr. Blondon has engaged a lawyer and will make an effort to break the will. He thinks the prospects are good. He met with a heart welcome from his surviving relatives.”4
- Conrad Koons
- Mary A. Elis Koons
- Mary Elisabeth Zumbrun Koons
- Confident is John Blondon that he can break his father’s will. (1896, January 11). Portsmouth Times, p. 2.
