Benjamin Fredrick Blake History

Benjamin Fredrick Blake was born in Weymout, Dorset, England on March 12^th, 1815 to Issac and Sophia Woods Blake.  At the age of 25, he met and married Harriet Hollis, who was from Southampton, England.  They were married on the 1^st of May in 1840.  In 1842 their first child was born, a boy named Fredrick.  At this time they were living in Hampshire, England.  In the year 1844, they Blanford, Dorset, England, and two years later moved to Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.  This is where they first heard the Gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints preached by two Elders from America.  In May of 1851, they and their eldest son Frederick, who was 11 years old, were baptized into the church.  Prior to this they had belonged to the Baptist Church.
In the last week of March, 1853 they with their five children, joined the Ten Pound Company and sailed from Liverpool, England and arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah the last of September.  Two of their seven children had been buried in England.  They lived in the 12^th ward.  In November of that same year their two  year old son passed away.  Benjamin was the first child to be born in this country.  He was their 8^th child.  Two more children were born to them while they were still living in Salt Lake City.
Benjamin Frederick Blake was a member of the Quorum of The  Seventy.  He and his family moved to American Fork, at the time when Johnson’s Army was camped  at Hamilton’s Fort.  They later returned to Salt Lake and lived there until they were called to go on a mission to Dixie, in Southern Utah.  They responded to this call and arrived in St. George, in the year of 1861.  Three years later in April, in 1864, they made a trip to Salt Lake City for conference, and while they were there they received their endowments in the Endowment House.  Three more children came to their home.  This made 13 children for this couple.  In the summer of 1882, they received more endowments in the St. George Temple.  In the early days of pioneering in St. George, Benjamin Frederick Blake was a prominent carpenter and was known as Chair-maker Blake.  He had a row of shops six rooms long on his lot and here made and sold furniture.
Home of Frank Dewsnup at 135 S 100 E was home of Benjamin Frederick Blake, built by him.  He made the walls 3 ft in thickness of dobby brick and laid hardwood floors over native lumber throughout the house.  Frederick Blake also lived there and his son Wallace.  The home was sold to Harriet Blake and her husband Neils Sandberg, they later sold it to Emerald Cos and he sold it to Dewsnups.  On the corner north of the home is where the cabinet shops were, where Heber Truman’s Home Stands.
On the 9^th of March, 1884, after three years of suffering, he passed away at the age of 71.  He was buried in the family plot in St. George Cemetery.