Medical Society. At the organization meeting, Jaunary 5, 1818, he was elected Vice-President. He was of the incorporators.

The demands of his mayoral duties at a time requiring incessant vigilance, caused Dr. Blake to take an associate. A partnership was formed with Dr. George A. Carroll, who resided at the corner of D and 12th Streets. January 26, 1814. Subsequently Dr. Blake associated with himself, Dr. William Jones. Dr. Blake was appointed by President Madison, the Medical Supervisor with a corps of doctors and surgeons. Dr. Jones was of this corps.

Dr. Blake was the Collector of Internal Revenue from December 25, 1813; and Register of Wills from July, 1818, until his death. The salary as Mayor he relinquished.

Dr. Blake to absent son wrote:

"I am just able to sit up an hour or two, and have determined to make an effort to write you once more. Some of my physicians flatter me with the idea of a recovery, others I find despond; I consider there is but a possibility. In a day or two I shall be fifty-two years old, which is but the meridian of man's life, but so many depart earlier that I feel perfectly reconciled to my fate, and I am ready to meet death. I shall leave behind me an honorable name and fair reputation and many beloved friends and connections who must soon follow me. Thank God your Mother enjoys good health and has an excellent constitution, and may reasonably calculate on long life; and I trust will live to raise to maturity our younger children and instill into their minds proper sentiments. I calculate I shall leave her a decent support and enable her to raise and finish the education of our younger children. I pray God to take you in his Holy Keeping, to preserve, bless and prosper you, and although I may never take you by the hand again, yet I have your image daily before me. Do not be distressed at this letter, recollect mine is the fate of all flesh."

Dr. Blake's valediction is sad and manly. It shows he had the spirit to meet courageously the finality of life with its enjoyments, affections and usefulness.

Dr. Blake died July 29, 1819, 3 A.M. He was in his fifty-second year. His indisposition was fourteen months.

The funeral service was at his late residence, the 30th, at 10 A. M. The funeral was attended by the Federal Lodge, F.A.A.M. No. 1; Brooke Lodge, No. 2; Columbia Lodge, No. 3; Washington Naval Lodge, No. 4; Potomac Lodge, No. 5; Union Lodge, No. 6; Lebanon Lodge, No. 7, with a band. The Grand Master, Daniel Kurtz, was in attendance. The pallbearers were Messrs. R. C. Weightman, James M. Varnum, Ebenezer Stout, Samuel Anderson, Harvey Bestor and John McLaughlin. The remains were interred in the Methodist Episcopal Burial Ground, Georgetown, and were removed, November 2, 1870, to the William A. Gordon lot in Oak Hill Cemetery.

The National Intelligencer has the tribute:

"Of the character of one so well known, it is almost superfluous to speak. But to those who knew him not, we may be permitted to say, that he was one of our worthiest and most respected citizens. * * * In private life, in the relations of father, husband, and friend, he was an ornament of society, and a bright example to all around him.”

Dr. Blake was high in the profession that lessens the ills of life and adds to the length of life. He had legislative experience which gave him the efficiency in his magisterial duties the mayorship. He was Mayor during the most troublous period of the United States—in the most doubtful days of existence-for it was then the least equipped to cope with a powerful adversary. He was the Mayor of the Nation's Capital, when the enemy's objective was the sacking of the public buildings which it did. The "other family servants were accustomed to say that his residence was occupied by their officers, who cared for its contents and left without having removed anything therefrom.” All of the record is that Dr. Blake did his part as Mayor as well as could be done. He had thoughts and knew how to phrase them in rhetorical finish. His public letters and his proclamations are the proofs. "He was social and hospitable and his

home the meeting place of men distinguished in public life, as appears from letters of Henry Clay, John Forsyth, and others." Dr. Blake lived near Pennsylvania Avenue on the west side of Tenth Street. The widow was living at the same place in 1822. In 1826, she resided at the northwest corner of Eighth Street and Louisiana Avenue. In 1834 she was the proprietress of the Congress boarding house, at the southeast corner of Pennsylvania and Four-and-a-Half

street.

Five children survived.

Thomas Holdsworth Blake. From the Biographical Congressional Directory. "Born in Calvert County, Md., June 14, 1792; attended the public schools and studied law in Washington, D. C.; member of the militia of the District of Columbia which took part in the battle of Bladensburg in 1814; moved to Kentucky and then to Indiana; began the practice of law in Terre Haute; prosecuting attorney and judge of the circuit court; gave up the practice of law and engaged in business; for several years a member of the State Legislature of Indiana; elected as an Adams Republican to the Twentieth Congress (March 4, 1827-March 3, 1829); appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office by President Tyler, May 19, 1842, served until April, 1845; chosen president of the Erie and Wabash Canal Company; visited England as financial agent of the State of Indiana; on his return died in Cincinnati, Ohio, November 28, 1849." In the District he had the title of colonel and in the early years of his life has mention in the Intelligencer in the social affairs.

James Heighe Blake engaged in gold mining in North Carolina. He returned to Washington and was employed in the General Land Office.

Dr. John Bond Blake had the authority, but never used it, to prescribe. Born at Colchester, Virginia, August 12, 1800.

University of Maryland, M. D. 1824. Incorporator of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia under its second charter. He was in the office of the Register of the Treasury. Commissioner of Public Buildings under Presidents Pierce and Buchanan; a member of the Board of Public Works, Secretary of the Washington National Monument Society, President of the National Metropolitan Bank and National Metropolitan Fire Insurance Company. He was an organizer of the Association of Oldest Inhabitants. He is recalled by the writer of this paper as remarkable for dignity without hauteur, courtesy and courtliness and cheerfulness and that to all he was the same without distinction to coin or color. He was the author of "Biographical Sketch of the Late Dr. Wm. Jones." He died October 26, 1881.

Joseph Richard Blake, who entered the Navy as a midshipman when eleven years of age, commissioned a lieutenant when twenty and died when twenty-four from exposure in

service.

Glorvina Blake married William A. Gordon. Mr. Gordon was born in Baltimore, 1803. He was a cadet at West Point accredited to Maryland. From the Academy he came to the Quartermaster General's Office, 1824, and there he remained until his death, July 25, 1873, a shade less than fifty years. He was at a time chief clerk. He lived on Fourteenth Street between F and G Streets. From this aristocratic location he went to a more aristocratic; that is, he went to Georgetown. "He was a gentleman of unblemished reputation, and possessed fine business abilities and social qualities, which endeared him to a large circle of friends."* This encomium is quoted, however we can safely bestow praises on Mr. and Mrs. Gordon for besides their daughter we have excellent copies and true of their characters in the talented and respected lawyers of our local bar., William A. and J. Holdsworth Gordon.

* The Evening Star, July 28, 1873.

A

ART LIFE IN WASHINGTON.

By LEILA MECHLIN

(Read before the Society-Dec. 21, 1920)

city may be famous for its art possessions, yet have no art life. The two are by no means synonymous. Granville Barker once said that attendance at concerts did not necessarily signify that a people were musical. In the same way because a city has a fine museum and many monumental works of sculpture, it does not necessarily follow that the people living therein are art loving.

Washington, the Nation's capital, cannot perhaps, boast the possession of monuments and art collections as numerous or of as fine quality as it should have, but there has always been in Washington from the very earliest days, a coterie of high-minded men and women who have honestly, simply and sincerely loved art. It is with these chiefly, that this paper will concern itself. The works of art, the public monuments, can be found listed in guide books and catalogues.

In 1800, the Government was moved from Philadelphia to Washington. During the greater part of 1803-4, one of the greatest portrait painters in the history of American art made his home here. This was Gilbert Stuart, whose portraits are today not only held in high esteem, but bring high prices in the auction room. One of his portraits of Washington was purchased by the late Henry C. Frick, a couple of years ago for $75,000.

In a little book of memoirs and letters of Dolly Madison, edited by her grand niece and published in 1887, by