Wednesday, August 20, 2014

New Brunswick Blake and the Genealogy of Captain John Blake of Miramachi, New Brunswick

At our recent visit to the Archives of Ontario, I discovered an interesting manuscript which included the genealogy of a Captain John Blake of Miramachi, New Brunswick. This is the work of Jane Logie Webster, W 3231 Boone Avenue - 205, Spokane Washington 99201.

Jane was born in 1902 in Menominee Michigan daughter of Alfred Ernest Logie and Isabella Sutherland Milner. Her great grandmother (wife of Robert Loggie) was Ann Blake and I will relate this story only but she has done an amazing amount of research on her lines and the publication is available at the archives.

Jane has a rather interesting family lore on the father of Ann Blake. It came down to her from her father who learned it from his grandmother Ann Blake. An earlier Captain Blake was said to have piloted a British ship around the tip of Newfoundland in a dense fog and when hailed the ship replied "we are carrying the body of General Wolfe, bound from Quebec to Liverpool."

I found online an early history of Quebec:

The Anglican See of Quebec was established in
1793, when the newly arrived Bishop Mountain
was welcomed by all classes of the. community, in-
cluding the Eoman Catholic bishop. Services of
the Church of England have, however, been held in
Quebec since 1759. One took place in memory of
General Wolfe, in the Ursuline convent chapel,
several days after his death, when the chaplain of
one of the British warships in port preached the
sermon from the pulpit of that church. It is not
generally known that, after his death on the Plains
of Abraham, the body of General Wolfe was con-
veyed to the parish church of St. Joseph de Levis
which had been converted into an hospital by the
English where it was embalmed and later taken
on board H.M.S. "Royal William", of eighty guns,
which sailed at once for England.

 Quebec 'Twixt old and new by George Gale, published at Quebec: The telegraph Printing Co. 1915.

https://archive.org/stream/quebectwixtoldne00galeuoft#page/n5/mode/2up

An image of the location in which Captain Blake was said to be at Miramachi.






There are a few writeups on the wife of Captain John Blake, Charlotte Taylor:

http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/charlotte_taylor/Folder1/Blake%27s%20Time.htm

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/s/p/a/Blake-Sparenberg-TX/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0063.html

A search on google for Captain John Blake + Miramachi yields a goodly number of items.

Family lore had intimated that this Captain John Blake was descendant of the Blake family at Bridgwater Somerset (Lord Admiral Robert Blake's line although Robert himself was a bachelor with no known descendants). I thought I would have a look at the material and see if there is a case for such a thought. One of the brothers, Nicholas Blake, did spend time in the West Indies and was very involved with shipping between England and this area. I have not yet been able to trace down all of his sons.

There are many descendants of Captain John Blake of Miramichi. Captain John Blake, settler at Miramichi, was said to be born in Scotland and that he died about 1783 and was said to be buried at Wilson's Point, Mirimachi. Even if he was older when he died he was still born in the early 1700s and this is several generations down from Admiral Robert Blake and his siblings. Since my own Blake line in Canada is very recent, my father was born in England, all of these earlier Blake lines here quite fascinate me. I am fairly confident that none of them are mine. Other than a Robert Blake (uncle/great uncle of my father) and I have never found this individual tracing back so suspect he may actually have been a Robert Taylor or Robert Rawlings or Robert Lywood on my father's mother side and I misunderstood the Uncle Robert surname. I do know that George Lywood was stationed in Halifax in 1807 with the British garrison there but he went on to Martinique and then Waterloo and managed to get back home once again to Milston Wiltshire!

I am entering this particular chart into Legacy and will extract a gedcom of this family from the chart in the publication and whatever I can add from the Canadian census or other. It would be intriguing to match their yDNA with a known descendant of the Bridgwater Blake family (ancestral to Admiral Robert Blake). I do not yet have such a sample but always hopeful.

Along the way looking at this family, I discovered a number of immigrant Blake families to New Brunswick.

1851 Census:

Alnwick, Northumberland County, New Brunswick
William Blake, husband, 42 NB (Scotch)
Mary Blake, wife, 44 English Oct 1818
John Blake, 18 NB
Ann Blake, 13 NB
Grace Blake, 11 NB
Maria Blake, 8 NB

Robert Blake senior, husband, 68 NB (Scotch)
Ann Blake, wife, 64 NB (Scotch)

Robert Blake junior, husband, 26 NB (Scotch)
Sarah Blake, wife, 24 NB (Scotch)
Harriet Blake, 4 NB (Scotch)

Samuel Blake, husband,  36 NB (Scotch)
Hellen Blake, wife, 34 Scotch June 1831
Elizabeth Blake, 14 NB (Scotch)
Ann Blake, 11 NB (Scotch)
Eliza Blake, 8 NB (Scotch)
Robert Blake, 5 NB (Scotch)
Sarah Blake, 2 NB  (Scotch)


John Blake, husband, 37 NB (Scotch)
Ann Blake, wife, 36 NB (Scotch)
Robert Blake, 17 NB (Scotch)
James Blake, 15 NB (Scotch)
John Blake, 13 NB (Scotch)
George Blake, 11 NB (Scotch)
Abigal Blake, 7 NB (Scotch)
William Blake, 3 NB (Scotch)

Chatham, Northumberland County, New Brunswick
Robert Blake, husband, 45 NB (Scotch)
Harriet Blake, wife, 48 Scotch 1821
John Blake, 13 NB (Scotch)
Isabella Blake, 12 NB (Scotch)
Ellen Blake, 10 NB (Scotch)
Catherine Blake, 9 NB (Scotch)
James Blake, 6 NB (Scotch)
Robert Blake, 5 NB (Scotch)
Dudley P Blake, 3 NB (Scotch)
Mary Ann Blake, 1 NB (Scotch)

Mary Blake, widow, 46 English 1835
Richard Blake, 28 English 1835

Newcastle, Northumberland County, New Brunswick
Patrick Blake, husband, 30 Irish 1840
Margaret Blake, wife, 22 Irish
Ann Blake, 2 NB
Honora Blake, 1 NB

Nelson, Northumberland County, New Brunswick
Mary A Blake, niece, 17 NB (Irish)

Simonds, Saint John County, New Brunswick
Wilson Blake, husband, 37 Wales 1846
Jane Blake, wife, 36 NB
Harriet Blake, 6 NB
Susan Blake, 4 NB
 

St James, Charlotte County, New Brunswick
John Blake husband, 35, Irish 1840
Mary Blake, wife, 32, Irish 1840
Julia Blake, 11, NB
Joannah Blake, 6, NB
William Blake, 5, NB
Michael Blake, 6 weeks, NB
Timothy Blake, 6 weeks, NB
Timothy Blake, 70, Irish 1843

Richard Blake, husband, 42 Irish 1834
Mary Blake, wife, 40, NB

St Patrick, Charlotte County, New Brunswick
David Blake, husband, 31 NB
Margaret Blake, wife, 23 NB
Lucretia Blake, 5 NB
Fredrick Blake, 4 NB
David Blake, 2 NB


Woodstock, Carleton County, New Brunswick
William Blake, husband, 25 NB
Mrs Blake, wife, 23 NB
Mrs Blake, mother, 50 NB
John Blake, 9 NB


Andover, Victoria County, New Brunswick
George Blake, husband, 50 Irish June 1819
Phebe Blake, wife,  40 Irish  1831
Abegail Blake 7 NB
Ann Jane Blake 6 NB
Phebe Blake 2 NB

Dalhousie, Restigouche County, New Brunswick
William Blake, single, 28, Scotch 1851

Fredericton, York County, New Brunswick
Margaret Blake, 24  NB (Irish)


Dumfries, York County, New Brunswick
Hetty Ann Blake, single, 18 NB

The families listed in the above 1851 census at Alnwick, Northumberland County would be the descendants of Robert Blake and Ann Jameson (William Samuel and Robert Blake Junior) and John Blake and Catherine Doe (John). The first family listed in the 1851 census at Chatham, Northumberland County is descendant of John Blake and Catherine Doe (Robert). Although ages can be inaccurate on the census I have revised the information which I found at the Archives to coincide with the dating in the census.

Land Records in Northumberland County point to this Robert Blake and this John Blake being sons of Captain John Blake and Charlotte Taylor.

John Blake in Vol E, Page 272, Grant Number 568 at Tabusintac Northumberland 12 Jun 1810 received 115 acres, Robert Blake received 380 acres and  their mother Charlotte Hierlihy received 280 acres. Included also in the list are Charlotte's other sons William Wishart, James William Hierlihy and Philip Hierlihy.

Still checking the records to add the gedcom to the family of Captain John Blake and Charlotte Taylor, but decided to post this today. Will carry on with the New Brunswick Blake families tomorrow.
















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