Thomas Blake
This pioneer family are natives of England. John Blake, the father of the above, was born in Yorkshire, Eng. Married Rebecca Burk in 1802. He came with his wife and five children to the United States in the summer of 1819. They first stopped in Cincinnati for a short time. Then came to Piqua, where he remained until the spring of 1820, when he located in Sidney, or where Sidney now is, for he built the first house on the town plat, and they were the first family in the town. He attended the sale of town lots in the fall of 1819, bought a lot and built a cabin that winter, and moved his family into it the March following. During the summer of 1820 he built a frame house, the lumber of which was sawed by hand. This house was used for a hotel and store, and was the first in the town. Mr. Blake continued keeping hotel and store for several years; finally engaged in buying and selling horses. In 1826 he took some fifty head of horses to South Carolina, sold his horses, and had returned as far as Lexington, Kentucky, where he was shot dead and robbed of his money. Mrs. Blake survived him until 1858.
From History of Shelby County, Ohio; R. Sutton & Co, Philadelphia PA, 1883