Peter Randolph Bland (December 1834 – August 31, 1835 and November 1, 1840 – April 4, 1841)

Peter R. Bland was born in Nottoway County, Virginia, on December 9, 1800. He attended Hampton Sidney College and was licensed as a Presbyterian minister by the Western District Presbytery on April 2, 1831. On October first of 1831 he was ordained and pastored the Mount Bethany Church. He preached in the Brownsville area of Tennessee and was pastor at Emmaus from 1844 to 1855. He subsequently became stated supply in Bellemont, Tennessee. He passed away on July 24, 1859.

Peter Bland was among the first settlers to reside in the Mason, Tennessee area with his wife, Susanna (Sally), and his sister, Mrs. Sally Bland Brodnax. With Mrs. Brodnax was her son, Richard Thomas Brodnax. They came to Tennessee from Nottoway County, Virginia, in 1824. They settled in Fayette County just north of Belmont and about three miles from Mason. When he first arrived, Peter Bland was a young lawyer but became a Presbyterian minister after his settlement in Fayette County.

The son of Richard Bland and Elizabeth Ridley Dickens, Peter Bland came from one of the most noted and influential families in colonial Virginia. The Blands had five children: Eliza (b. 1817), Martha Wallace (b. June 7, 1818, m. William Anderson Taylor), Osceola(b. 1820, d.1860), Virginia R. (b. February 4, 1827, m. Thomas Roper Williams) and William.