Person:James Blake (31)

It is possible that James was married before and that his marriage to Mariah was his second marriage. There is a list of 16 cemetery inscriptions copied by Eunice Proctor Perkins which inscriptions were not located in 1984 and are evidently destroyed or eroded since read by Mrs. Perkins. One says: Blake, S______ w/o Jam____ Blake d. 31 Aug 1841, aged 24 y 3 mo. It is very likely that this is James' first wife and she died before James and Mariah married in 1843. I note several of the children below had to be born before James' marriage to Mariah. (P.S. Betty Briggs has that James' 1st wife was Sarah Ann Brown and that the first 4 children below were hers.)

1850 Jackson Co WV # 229-233 Blake James 34 M Farmer Pa Blake Maria 29 F Ohio Blake George 16 M Pa (b approx 1834) Blake William 13 M Pa (b approx 1837) Blake Mary A 12 F Pa (b approx 1838) Blake James 10 M Pa (b approx 1840) Blake Ephraim 4 M Va Blake Sarah E 2 F Va Blake Emanuel 3/12 M Va

So I assume that James moved with his first wife and children to the Jackson County area from Pennsylvania and after the first wife died, James married Maria Jackson.

1860 JC # 1048-986 Blake, James, 47 Maria, 37 William, 24 James, 20 Ephraim, 14 Ellen, 12 Emanuel, 9 John, 8 Leander, 2

1. ↑ Website of Betty Briggs: West Virginia Pioneers www.wvpioneers.com.
2.   Email from Clark Blake mcblake add the at cc.wwu add the dot edu.
3.   Email from Paula Mellor researcher4907-tree add the at, yahoo add the dot com.

   Hardesty's Biographical Atlas, Jackson Co, WV 1882, Wes Cochran, pg 53