Clay County AlArchives Biographies.....Blake, Wyatt Heflin June 21 1856 - living 1893
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Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 15, 2004, 7:35 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
   WYATT HEFLIN BLAKE, B. S., M. D., physician of Lineville, Ala., is a son of
John and Marietta (Heflin) Blake. The Blake family came originally from Hall
county, Ga. Thomas Blake, the father of John Blake, left Hall county and removed
with his family to Randolph county, Ala., about 1833. He was the first
representative in the legislature of Alabama, from Randolph county. He reared
his family in that county, and was a planter and stock raiser by occupation.
John Blake came to maturity in Randolph county, and married in 1852. He lived at
what is known as Blake's Ferry. He was a merchant and planter, a man of thrift
and energy, and accumulated considerable property. He was not a public man. His
family consisted of six children, viz.: Wyatt Heflin; Young, of Roanoke, Ala.;
Henry W. of Anniston, Ala.; Stell, of Wedowee, Ala.; Marietta, wife of James B.
Steed of Lineville, Ala.; Rogers M., a minor. The mother of this family died in
1876, and the father in 1885. Wyatt Heflin Blake was born June 21, 1856, at
Blake's Ferry. The old homestead was originally the site of an Indian village,
on a reservation owned by a Creek Indian. The doctor has the original Indian
deed in his possession at the present time. Dr. Blake was educated at Lineville
in early life. In 1874 he went to Newnan, Ga., and there attended an academy one
year. In 1875, he went to the A. & M. college at Auburn, Ala., and in 1879
graduated from that institution with the second honors of a class consisting of
nineteen young men. He was captain of company A, corps of cadets. While at
college he gave considerable attention to oratory, and has since leaving school
delivered a number of addresses which have been highly spoken of. He delivered
an address before the alumni association of his school in 1891, on the
Aborigines of Alabama; and in this address made a strong plea for a school
history of the state. This address was highly spoken of by the critics of the
day. After graduating he taught at Roanoke during the years 1880 and 1881. He
then went to Vanderbilt university, where he graduated in the spring of 1883 in
the medical department of that institution. He then secured the appointment of
assistant to the chair of chemistry in that institution, and remained there a
short time. His father's illness called him home, and for some time he managed
his fathers mercantile business, and at the same time practiced his profession.
In 1888 Dr. Blake moved to Lineville, Ala., where he still lives. He was married
July 26, 1885, at Roanoke, Ala., to Mattie L. Shaffer, daughter of Dr. J. P.
Shaffer of Dadeville, Ala., whose sketch appears elsewhere in this work. By this
marriage he has three children, viz.: John, Jephtha H. and Margaret E.
Politically Dr. Blake is a democrat, and is the Clay county member of the
democratic executive committee of the fifth congressional district of Alabama.
He is a member of the Chi Phi fraternity of the state medical association, being
a counselor in that body of the Clay county medical society, and he is one of
the censors for the county. He graduated with the degree of bachelor of science
at the A. & M. college of Ala., and with the degree of doctor of medicine at
Vanderbilt university. He is an excellent physician and a man of considerable
merit in literary matters. His address before the alumni association of his
college in 1891 has already been referred to. The following extracts from that
address are here introduced: "I have recently examined a number of the popular
school histories in use throughout our country, and I find that the greatest
space devoted to a history of our own state in any of the books examined is ten
lines." "Should our children be taught of Salem witchcraft, the Acadians in Nova
Scotia, the Pequod war, or the prosecution of the Quakers, to the neglect of the
history of our own state? I think not. Our children are taught of the adventures
of John Smith in Virginia, but are told nothing of the equally romantic life of
Samuel Dale of Alabama." They read of the patriotic eloquence of Patrick Henry,
but know nothing of the equally eloquent and no less patriotic appeals of
William Lowdnes Yancey. What citizen of Alabama does not feel a keener sense of
state pride when he remembers that William Rufus King, Jabez L. M. Curry and J.
Marion Sims, together with scores of others whose names would honor the pages of
a nation's history, were Alabamians either by birth or adoption? Is it justice
to these men whose lives have given character to our state to allow their names
to be forgotten? What is more cruel than neglect? And in addition to the crime
of ingratitude we are losing the greatest possible influence known in developing
in our youth a feeling of state pride, that element so essentially important to
a higher order of citizenship. An individual without personal or family pride, a
professional man without professional pride, or citizen without state pride is
an inferior product of his kind, and can we expect to develop a feeling of state
pride among our youth when they are ignorant of the history of our state?"	



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 644-646


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