Jacob and Barbara Blount had several children including the statesmen William, John Gray, and Thomas Blount. In the early 1760s, Jacob built Blount Hall, the family plantation in Pitt Country, and Thomas, with his other brothers, was born at the plantation. Thomas Blount was born on May 10, 1759, in what was then Craven County.
When the Revolutionary War started, the sixteen-year-old Blount joined the Continental Army Blount. He was captured, and as a prisoner of war he was placed in an English prison.
After the war, Blount returned to North Carolina and he became a trader in Tarboro, Edgecombe County. In 1788, Blount became a North Carolina House of Commons delegate, and he later served in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Congresses from 1793 until 1799. Part of the Anti-Administration party in his first term as a North Carolina representative, Blount voted along Republican lines in the 4th and 5th Congresses.
Blount took a brief sabbatical before returning to politics in the early 1800s. Blount lost the election in 1802, but he was later elected to the 9th and 10th Congresses. He served as a Republican from 1805 until 1809. Although he failed to secure election to the 11th U.S. Congress, Blount was elected to the 12th Congress where he served until he passed away on February 7, 1812. Blount is buried in the Congressional Cemetery.