Joseph (Clay Styles) Blackburn - Dates of birth and death

US representative and senator, born in Woodford Co, Kentucky, USA. A Confederate war veteran, he served in the US House of Representatives (Democrat, Kentucky, 1875–85) and the US Senate (1885–97). He also served as governor of the Panama Canal Zone (1907–9).

Joseph Blackburn, also known as Jonathan Blackburn, (dates of birth and death uncertain - see note below) was an English portrait painter who worked mainly in Bermuda and in colonial America.

He seems to have been the son of a painter, and to have had a studio in Boston in 1750-1765;

Some of his portraits are in the possession of the public library of Lexington, Massachusetts, and of the Massachusetts Historical Society, but most of them are privately owned and are scattered over the country, the majority being in Boston.

Dates of birth and death

There is a degree of confusion about the dates of birth and death of Blackburn.

Some sources still give 1700-1765 as Blackburn's years. These most likely derive from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, published prior to Lawrence Park's review - "Joseph Blackburn - Portrait Painter," - printed in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society in 1922 which established many of the known works of Blackburn.