Harrison G. O. Blake
Harrison Gray Otis Blake was a U.S. Representative from Ohio.
Born in Newfane, Vermont, Blake moved to Salem, New York, and in 1830 to Guilford, Ohio. He received his education at public schools, later studying medicine at Seville for one year. In 1836, he moved to Medina, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits and studied law. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Medina. From 1846 to 1847, he served as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, and was elected to the Ohio State Senate in 1848, serving as that chamber's president.
Blake was elected as a Republican to the 36th United States Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Cyrus Spink, formerly Representative for Ohio's 14th congressional district. He was reelected to that Congress, serving from October 11, 1859 to March 3, 1863. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1862 to the Thirty-eighth Congress, but instead, with the Civil War raging, entered the United States Army in 1864. He served as colonel of the 166th Ohio Infantry, a Hundred Days Regiment.
After the war, he declined the appointment of Governor of Idaho Territory, resuming the practice of law and maintaining an interest in banking and mercantile pursuits. He served as delegate to the Loyalist Convention at Philadelphia in 1866, and died ten years later in Medina, Ohio, on April 16, 1876. He was interred in Spring Grove Cemetery.
He maintained correspondence with the transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau is considered to be a major influence to modern ecologist movement. Only Thoreau's letters are conserved and published.
