Blackburn, Ephraim (1754–1807)

Ephraim Blackburn, a member of Philip Nolan's botched expedition, son of James and Mary Blackburn, was born in 1754 and reared in West Nottingham Township, Pennsylvania. He was a Quaker but nonetheless commanded a company in the American Revolution. He married Prudence Rich. Blackburn gave his home state as Maryland in 1801, when he entered Texas above Nacogdoches as a member of Nolan's expedition. Blackburn was captured with the Nolan party and imprisoned at Chihuahua. When Spanish authorities decreed that one man of the nine survivors of the expedition should be killed, dice were thrown to determine who should be hanged. Blackburn, the oldest man in the group, cast the dice first and threw the low number. He was hanged in the Plaza de los Urangas in Chihuahua City, Mexico, on November 11, 1807.