James Morris Blackwell

Mr. James Morris Blackwell is a wealthy industrialist who has developed construction projects all up and down the New England Coast. Notably, Mr. Blackwell is a rather public member of the historic ‘Blackwell family of Boston’ who have lived in the town since before the revolution. Born in the mid 1950’s, Blackwell was educated at Harvard and continued in his family’s business of real estate though he focused more on the construction and development aspect rather than simple acquisition. He’s built hospitals, schools, hotels, office buildings, bridges, and is generally seen as a philanthropist.

He has a number of children and is a member of a large family well-situated within the Boston social community.

James Blackwell has escaped three attempts on his life through nearly miraculous means. When he was in his twenties he was involved in a car crash that killed his first wife who was also the mother of his two children. Some said that the breaks were tampered with and that he should have died along with her but he ‘somehow’ managed to walk out of the wreck with only a sprained arm and some bumps and bruises. Later, in his thirties, when he was with his second wife, he narrowly escaped a drive-by shooting. His second wife was not so lucky as she took five bullets to the chest and face. Mr. Blackwell survived with a shot to his arm but was spared a life-threatening injury due to a titanium-shielded briefcase that he just happened to be carrying at the time. Lastly, in his forties, his third and final wife was burned to death in a townhouse fire while he and the children were away. After burying three wives, he is quoted to say, he’s done with marriage.

It was after he buried his third wife that J. Blackwell began performing ‘random acts of charity’ throughout New England. He was often known to “anonymously” donate money to the renovation of a historic building or purchase and then regift important works of art or landmarks. This was something he did even as far back as when he was with his first wife.

Blackwell’s uncanny luck was sited in numerous articles and it was pointed out that he, like many other Blackwell men, seem to have the best and worst luck imagined. They get into the worst situations but find some way of coming out of it alive; everyone else with them seems to pay the price. This is the legacy of the Blackwell family; they survive above all others. What’s curious is that anyone who’s married into the family doesn’t seem to share that same level of ‘luck’; it’s only those born a Blackwell have it.