Introduction

8 Apr 1995

This booklet has been long in the making - and I still have more to be done. However, I've decided to put together what I now have.

While I was looking at the Wisconsin Federal Census of 1860, Portage County, for my mother's Roe ancestors, I accidentally came across the Blakey family - a surprise since my Grandfather George supposedly was born in Hayward, Wis. The census (a copy is included here) shows Henry and Jemima, an older couple Edward and Margaret (Henry's parents), and James all born in England and Emily born in Wis.

By the 1870 Federal Census, they had moved to Jackson County, Minnesota - Emily had died and George had been born (in Wis.) Edward was listed alone, indicating his wife Margaret had died (I did find in the Mortality Schedule that she died in February of that year). Family tradition says that both Margaret and Emily were buried on the family farm.

By 1880, James had married and was listed with his wife; Henry and Jemima were listed with George and Will, their third son. Edward had remarried a Martha Haggard (a relative of James wife?) and had four children. I have found no trace of them anywhere.

An affidavit attached to a land record in 1904 states that in 1882 Edward left his family and returned to England, dying there in 1889. I have yet to verify that.

Besides the Census, I have included copies of obituaries (not every statement in obits. is accurate), and pictures, plus computer printouts of descendants. I would appreciate corrections, additions, suggestions, help in research, etc.
　
Verla A. Williams
4333 Pine Ridge Trail NE
Iowa City, IA 52240

UPDATE (31 Jan 2020): I received Edward BLAKEY's death certificate in the mail yesterday. The affidavit was incorrect. Edward died on 14 Nov 1886. He was living on the same street in Bradford as his daughter, Eliza, and her husband, William Hanson. The informant on the certificate was their daughter Harriet (Hanson) Littleson. 

Township Map of Jackson County, Minnesota

Township map of Jackson County, MN. Image courtesy of The Minnesota GenWeb Project.

Some of the Men Who Toiled Early and Late to Build Jackson

"Some of the Men Who Toiled Early and Late to Build Jackson," (Newspaper and date unknown). Image courtesy of Verla Williams.

Update (3 Nov 2009): I received from Linda Doepel a much higher quality scan of this image which I reproduce below. She found it in a book called An Illustrated History of Jackson County.


Pioneers. Illustration from Arthur P. Rose, An Illustrated History of Jackson County, Minnesota (Jackson, MN: Northern History Publishing Co., 1910), p. 147. Image courtesy of Linda Doepel.

Rose (1910, 119) also mentions Henry Blakey and his father Edward as some of the early settlers of Des Moines Township:

Jackson township (renamed Des Moines by act of the board of county commissioners May 16, 1866) had the other townships of the tier attached to it at the time of organization, as well as the tier north of it. It lost the northern tier early in 1867 by the organization of Belmont township, Wisconsin in 1869, and the townships to the west in 1872. Following are the early settlers of Des Moines who received titles from the government and the years the patents were issued:

. . . 1873, Milton Mason (4), Martin L. Bromaghim (12), Alpheus C. Marshall (12), Welch Ashley (12), Hans Chesterson (15), Stanton F. Stone (18), Hiram II. Stone (18), Emmet Miner (20-21), Joseph E. Fields (26-27), Horace L. Trumbull (27), Levi Bennett. Jr. (28), Henry Blakey (28), Edward J. Orr (29), Jesse E. Prescott (30), Orson Cook (30), Michael Smith (30), William R. Maddock (33), Edward Davies (34); 1874, Hans Stall (2), Hans Hanson (2), Erick Christianson (2), Edward Blakey (27-28); . . .