Researching John Adair

He first came to public notice in 1683, with a prospectus published in Edinburgh for a "Scottish Atlas" stating that the Privy Council of Scotland had engaged Adair, a "mathematician and skilfull (sic) mechanic", to survey the shires of Scotland. He surveyed the coast of Scotland from 1686, and was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1688. The only part of the coastal survey appeared in 1703.

He was perhaps the first Scottish map-maker actively to use triangulation in his work. Twelve manuscript maps survive from his work at this time, covering the Lothians, Stirling, Fife, Kinross and southern Perthshire. Unfortunately, financial and other difficulties hampered much of John Adair's map making, and not only were very few of his maps engraved during his lifetime, but most of his manuscript maps were destroyed by fire in 1811. However, a few of his county maps were engraved and printed by Richard Cooper, the elder in the 1730s.

After moving to Kentucky in 1786, Adair participated in the Northwest Indian War, including a skirmish with the Miami Chief Little Turtle near Fort St. Clair in 1792. Popular for his service in two wars, he entered politics in 1792 as a delegate to Kentucky's constitutional convention. Adair was elected to a total of eight terms in the state House of Representatives between 1793 and 1803. He served as Speaker of the Kentucky House in 1802 and 1803, and was a delegate to the state's Second Constitutional Convention in 1799. He ascended to the United States Senate to fill the seat vacated when John Breckinridge resigned to become Attorney General of the United States in the Cabinet of Thomas Jefferson, but failed to win a full term in the subsequent election due to his implication in a treason conspiracy involving Vice President Aaron Burr. After a long legal battle, he was acquitted of any wrongdoing; and his accuser, General James Wilkinson, was ordered to issue an apology. The negative publicity kept him out of politics for more than a decade.

Adair's participation in the War of 1812, and a subsequent protracted defense of Kentucky's soldiers against General Andrew Jackson's charges that they showed cowardice at the Battle of New Orleans, restored his reputation. He returned to the State House in 1817, and Isaac Shelby, his commanding officer in the War who was serving a second term as governor, appointed him adjutant general of the state militia. In 1820, Adair was elected eighth governor on a platform of financial relief for Kentuckians hit hard by the Panic of 1819, and the ensuing economic recession. His primary effort toward this end was the creation of the Bank of the Commonwealth, but many of his other financial reforms were deemed unconstitutional by the Kentucky Court of Appeals, touching off the Old Court–New Court controversy. Following his term as governor, Adair served one undistinguished term in the United States House of Representatives and did not run for re-election.

After serving in World War II, he moved to the University of New Mexico to finish his graduate studies, becoming the University’s first doctoral candidate in anthropology in 1948. Adair than moved to Zuni with his pregnant wife Casey and their son. His sole purpose of moving to Zuni was to gather information that he could use in his dissertation, "The Veterans of World War II at Zuni Pueblo", which was never published.

Cornell University hired him in 1948. The school asked him to teach a series of field seminars in the Southwest. The resulting studies in the Southwest were published as the book First Look at Strangers in 1959.

Adair joined the Cornell-Navajo Field Health Research Project at Many Farms, located on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, working there as chief anthropologist from 1953 to 1960. He, along with many other anthropologists, played an important role in this project. They were asked to provide anthropological insight, perspectives, and methodologies. Adair and two other anthropologists published a report of the project in The People’s Health in 1970 and later revised the report in 1988.

Adair worked with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) from 1961 to 1964. At the conclusion of his work in the NIMH, he became Professor of Anthropology at San Francisco State University, where he remained until his retirement in 1978.

He is also known for the 1972 book, Through Navajo Eyes: An Exploration in Film Communication and Anthropology, which he co-authored with Sol Worth.

Adair was born at St Stephen's Green, Dublin, the son of John Adair, a lawyer. He studied at Trinity College Dublin being a scholar in 1871 and being awarded BA in mathematics in 1873. In 1874 he was admitted at Pembroke College, Cambridge and was awarded BA in mathematics (7th Wrangler) in 1878. From 1878 and 1879 he was an assistant master at Derby School and from 1887 to 1890 he was a demonstrator in physics at the University of Sydney. Adair died at Ballsbridge, County Dublin, Ireland at the age of 61.