Abijah Blake was the son of Levi and Polly (Kelly) Blake. He was born in Swanzey, New Hampshire in 1801. Abijah moved to Rutland, Vermont soon after his marriage to Maria (Belding) Blake in 1826. They both died in Vermont and are buried at the Elmwood Cemetery in Northfield.

Abijah learned the trade of tanner from his father, but later he became a sea captain. He sailed around the Cape to California, picking up loads of wheat, and would often take the cargo to Europe before returning home to Vermont. Sometimes he would be gone from home for a year at a time.

Follow up:

Maria Belding was born in Swanzey, NH also. She was the daughter of Elijah and Margaret Belding. Elijah was known as “The Squire” or Honorable Belding. He officiated at the marriage of Abijah and Maria, who were married on the steps of the old Belding homestead in Swanzey. Abijah and Maria moved to New Haven, VT before their first child was born in 1828.

They had seven children, all born in New Haven, Addison County, VT. 

1. Eliza Augusta was born Feb.23, 1828. She married D. C. Bradley and lived in Chicago. She died there in 1856, at the young age of 28.

2. Levi Lowell was born April 21,1830. He was an early pioneer of Montana, but later moved to Wash. D. C. where he died in 1904. He is buried in Northfield, VT.

3. Ellen Marie was born April 1,1832. She married the Honorable George Nichols, who was a very fine physician. Ellen died in 1905 at Northfield, VT.

4. Mary Louise was born Feb.5, 1834. She married John Elliot Smith. They lived in Portland, ME. She died there in 1913.

5. Elijah Belding Blake was born May 9, 1836. Elijah married Mary Ruth (?), they had one daughter, Ida Blake, and lived in Worcester, MA where Elijah died in 1916.

6. Abraham Stearns Blake was born Nov. 29, 1837. He made a name for himself as one of the earliest pioneers of Montana, and died in Victor, MT in 1907.

7. William Carr Trowbridge Blake was born Sept.15, 1839. In his twenty’s William followed his older brothers to Montana. He was employed as a horticulturist for a greenhouse in Deer Lodge, MT. He contracted typhoid fever and died there in 1872 at the young age of thirty-three.
 
The mother Marie Blake, died in 1841, two years after William Carr was born. Abijah then moved to Vergennes, VT, where he re-married. He and his new wife, Parthana had one child, George Blake, who was born in 1847. 

The Blake family was made up of remarkable people. Levi Lowell Blake and Abraham Stearns Blake were early gold miners in California and in Montana. They became noted men in Montana History.

Levi Lowell served in the Mexican American War. He then made a small fortune in the California gold fields. He was in Montana with the Gov. Stevens Railroad Survey and worked closely with John Mullen who pioneered the first wagon road from Fort Benton to Walla Walla, Washington. In an election held July 14, 1862, Levi was elected representative to the Wash. Territorial Legislature. However, “on his way to the legislative session in Olympia, he was side tracked by the gold fields near present day Boise, ID, and never assumed the office.” He earned the title of Major Blake in 1867 for his services to the government, acting as Indian Agent on the Jocko Reservation near Polson, MT. He was officially elected to the post in 1869 but did not accept it. He returned to the east to live. 

In 1870 Levi located in Wash. D. C. where he became part owner in the Marshall Hall Steamship Company. He traded the title of Major Blake for that of Captain Blake. He was the Captain of several pleasure steamers that plied the Potomac River to Mt. Vernon and the Marshall Hall Amusement Park. He was variously listed as captain of the “Mary Washington,” the “W.W. Corcoran,” the “Charles Macalaster,” and the “Steamer Arrow.” The Marshall Hall Steamship Co. later acquired the famed “River Queen,” of 1864. The “River Queen” had frequently been referred to as “Lincoln’s Favorite,” a/c his frequent use in the closing days of the Civil War.

At the age fifty-six, Levi married Marie (Robinson). They had a daughter, Marion, and a son Lowell Blake.

Levi died in Wash. D. C. in 1904 and, “with the consent of his wife, his burial expenses were assumed by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association as a gesture of appreciation and thanks for his many services.” His body was shipped, via Penn. R.R. to Northfield, VT, where he is buried with other members of his family.

At age seventeen, Abraham Stearns Blake left Vermont and sailed, via Nicaragua to California.  He mined in the gold fields there for six years and then journeyed to Montana, where he mined at Gold Creek in the Deer Lodge Valley, and was one of the first white men to find gold in paying quantities. He was on the ill-fated “1863 Stuart Expedition to the Yellowstone Country,” and is written up for that story, and many others, in many Montana History Books. 

At Fort Owen in the Bitterroot Valley, Abraham Stearns met Mary Use, a Shoshone Indian girl, (daughter of a Chief). They were married in 1869 and homesteaded in Victor, MT.
Abraham Stearns Blake played an important part in Montana history. He was elected a Member of the House of Representatives at its first session, 1889-90, and a Delegate of the State Legislative Assembly in its second session, 1891-92. He and Mary lived out their lives in Victor. Stearns died in 1907 and is buried at the Victor Cemetery beside his wife and the first six of their eleven children.