Miles M. Blake, 549 Wharton Ave. Lakemont, Altoona, PA, 1954

My great grandfather on my Father's side, instead of coming from Holland, was from England. His name was William Blake and he was the son of Sir William Blake, who once was a great warrior and played an important part in saving England from Invaders who might have conquered England but for the good generalship of Sir William Blake. He and his armies kept the country from being overrun by invaders, and he was rewarded by the Crown of England with a gift of a great amount of land, of which most of it lay where the city of London now stands. Sir William had two sons; William and Bascom. His son William was a minister, but he didn't like the ways of the Church of England and decided to come to the New Land and start a church to suit his way of thinking. He and his brother left England and came to the New Country about 1700. William settled in Massachusetts, while Bascom settled at Philadelphia.

William started a church in Massachusetts called the Quaker Church, of which there are several branches today; The dunkards, Mennonites, and others. William had learned all about the foundry business in England, so he decided to start a cast iron foundry in this country. He and a friend left Massachusetts and came to Pennsylvania and settled at what is now Woodbury, Bedford County, and there started a cast iron foundry, making stoves, iron kettles, ploughshares, and all kinds of cast iron implements that were needed in those early days. He continued preaching and helping to run the iron foundry until his death, about he year 1834. He had six sons; Thomas, William, Berdine, (who also became a preacher) Simon, Easton and Samuel; who was my Father. Five of these boys enlisted in the army during the Civil war and were mustered in at the place now called Loysburg, Bedford County, but at that time was the town of Pattonsville. Thomas and William never returned from the war. Whether they were killed in action, or what happened to them, no one ever knew. Easton had learned the foundry business in his Father's foundry, and on coming back from the war, decided to start a Foundry in Huntingdon. He built his foundry on the east bank, about 200 yards about the mouth of Stone Creek, which empties into the Juniata River. The foundry continued to run and turn out castings until Easton Blake's death, about the year 1888. when it was shut down, and some years later it was disbanded.

My father, Samuel Blake, was a plasterer by trade. He married Mary Putt at Martinsburg about the year 1864 after he had come home from the Civil War. They had nine children; six boys and three girls.

There was Frank, Oliver, (myself -- Miles), Simon, Charles, Samuel, Savilla, Margaret and Elizabeth. Of the six boys only two had children. The elder one, Frank, had two girls, no boys; and myself, Miles, five girls and one boy, Ralph, who is married to Arvilla Frederick. My son has no children, so you see, of the William Blake that migrated from England, Ralph Blake is the last of his descendants in this line.

There is supposedly a great fortune lying in the Bank of England form the sale of the property that was given to Sir William Blake for helping to save the Crown of England. This fortune is supposed to be as much as thirty-million dollars or more, and is laying there waiting for the Blake heirs to claim it, but up to the present time, no one has been aggressive enough to lay claim to it.

This ends my story of the rise and fall of a once thriving and prosperous community in the upper Juniata Valley. This is 1954 and is the hundredth year of the borough of Saxton, in the community of the once thriving place where I was born in the year of 1872. I am now in my 81st year.