Background

John Blake was born on December 21, 1788, in Northwood, New Hampshire, United States, the son of Jonathan and Mary (Dow) Blake.

Education

John went to the district school in winter, attended Phillips Exeter Academy, and graduated in 1812 from Brown University.

Career

Blake was licensed as a Congregational minister in 1813, but soon turned to the Episcopal Church. Upon his ordination as an Episcopal deacon in 1815 he organized St. Paul's parish in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and was its rector until 1820. He then took charge of parishes in Concord and Hopkinton, New Hampshire, and at Concord started a girls' school that succeeded so well that in 1822 he moved it to Boston, where he continued to maintain it until 1830. In Boston he was also rector of St. Matthew's from 1824 to 1832 and editor of the Gospel Advocate, which in January 1827 was merged with the Episcopal Watchman. The rest of his life was given chiefly to literary work of one sort or another. He made his home in New York for a time and about 1846 moved to Orange, New Jersey, where he died.

As cleric and schoolmaster Blake had acquired a varied stock of information, which he purveyed at first in small packages as textbooks and later in whole tomes as one-volume encyclopedias. The farmer being especially dear to his heart, he endeavored to further scientific agriculture and rural education in general with A Family Textbook for the Country, or the Farmer at Home, Being a Cyclopædia of the More Important Topics in Modern Agriculture (1853), an alphabetization of definitions, anecdotes, homilies, and tidbits of information not all together trustworthy. The same characteristics reappeared in his larger work, A Family Encyclopedia of Useful Knowledge (1852).

Achievements

• John Blake was a bestselling author. He wrote in all more than forty books, most of them texts of geography, the natural sciences, and Christian evidences, together with various reading books and other miscellaneous productions. Somewhat better was the book by which he was most widely known, his General Biographical Dictionary (1835), which enjoyed for almost a generation a good reputation and a useful career as a reference book.

Works

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  • The Second Reader, Or Juvenile Companion

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Young Orator and New-York Class Book: Especially Designed to Prevent Dullness and Monotony in the Reading and Declamation of Schools

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • A view of the world: as exhibited in the manners, costumes, & characteristics of all nations

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Conservations on Vegetable Physiology

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • A History of the American Revolution: First Published in London Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Improved with Maps and Other Illustrations

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • A Family-text Book for the Country: Or, The Farmer at Home

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • The Historical Reader: Designed for the Use of Schools and Families, on a New Plan

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • A geographical, chronological, and historical atlas, on a new and imiproved plan: Or, A view of the present state of all the empires, kingdoms, states, and colonies in the known world

Membership

Blake was a member of the American Antiquarian Society.

Personality

Blake seems to have been an amiable, dutiful man, a diligent though decidedly uncritical student and writer.

Connections

Blake married Louisa Gray Richmond June 25, 1814, who died January 3, 1816; on December 6 of the same year he married Mary Howe.

Father:

Jonathan Blake

Mother:

Mary (Dow) Blake

Spouse:

Mary (Howe) Blake

Spouse:

Louisa Gray (Richmond) Blake