Adoniram Judson Blake was born in Brimfield, Portage Co., Ohio, on November 15, 1835.  His parents were from Litchfield County, Conn., having emigrated from there in the year 1825; he was the youngest of four brothers.  There were also two sisters in the family, one younger and one older.  During the first sixteen years of his life, his labors were such as are incident to a farmer boy's life, with only such school advantages as were offered by the district school.  For the next two years, he attended a high school a part of each year in an adjoining village.  It was while attending one of these schools, known as an "academy," that his father "hired him out," to teach the winter term of school in one of the subdistricts of his native township.  He entered upon this work a few days before he was eighteen years of age.  His success in this, his first "term," can be measured by a proposition made to him by the School Directors of the district to continue the term for another month.  In the following autumn, through the influence of himself and several associates, a select school was organized in their own township, and was continued during the fall and sometimes through the winter months for several years.  For the next few years his time was divided between teaching in the winter and attending school and institutes in the summer, most of this time in his native township.  In 1857, he was asked to take charge of the grammer school department of the Salem, Columbiana County, Union Schools.  In this position he remained three years, when he accepted the position of teacher of the high school at Upper Sandusky, Wyandot Co., Ohio, which he resigned in the spring of 1861.  Desiring to take a rest, he visited several schools in this part of Ohio, and while visiting at Cardington, Morrow County, be was unanimously tendered the superintendency of the union schools of that place, which he accepted, and held for a year and a half, finally resigning on account of ill health.  After a few months' rest, he embarked in the stove and tin ware trade at that place.  He was married in Cardington, Ohio, August 20, 1863, to Miss Clotilda W. Shur, second daughter of John Shur, of that place, who was then an Assessor of Internal Revenue under Abraham Lincoln.  Desirous of bearing his part in the war, he contributed liberally of his means to furnish men and means, and was only prevented from joining the ranks by Dr. Fisher's examination, which pronounced him physically unfit for the service."  In August, 1865, he came to this place, and engaged in the general hardware and stove business.  His friends in Cardington believed the venture was an experiment, and that he would soon return to their village.  Encouraged by his success, in the spring of 1866, he removed his stock of stoves and hardware from that place to this, thus combining both stocks, and formed the partnership of A. J. Blake & Co., with D. W. Godman as partner.  In the spring of the same year, he erected a two-story frame building, twenty feet wide by one hundred feet long, on the ground now occupied by Godman & Thornhill's hardware store.  In May of that year, be was asked by several of the citizens of the place to accept the appointment as Postmaster, which recommendation was laid before Postmaster General W. Dennison by the Hon. C. S. Hamilton, and, accordingly, on the 26th day of May, 1866, he was commissioned as Post master, which office he held until compelled to resign the same by a pressure of business relations.  He has always taken an active part in the educational interests of the place in which he resides.  After resigning his position as superintendent in Cardington, he was chosen a member of the School Board. Soon after coming to Richwood, he drafted a petition for what is now the Richwood Village District, to withdraw from the township subdistrict plan, which was adopted, and out of which has grown our system of union schools.  Most of the time since, he has been a member of the School Board, having been selected as its Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer at different times.  He has also assisted in preparing the course of study for the high school, and in conducting its examinations.  His love for the profession of teaching has not died out yet, as nothing gives him greater pleasure than to meet a body of teachers, either in a school room or at his own residence.  He thinks it no discredit that, out of his father's family of six children, five of them were school teachers.  While in the hardware trade in this place, he saw the necessity of a planing mill and lumber yard, and the firm of A. J. Blake & Co. associated with them Mr. S. Carter, under the name of S. Carter & Co., and built the building, and stocked the yard, which is now owned by S. M. & A. J. Blake.  In January, 1873, he disposed of his interest in the hardware business to Mr. F. H. Thornhill, and proceeded to the erection of the dwelling house, which he now occupies.  In January, 1874, he, with his brother, S. M. Blake, and others engaged in the banking business, under the name of "Union County Bank," in which as cashier he has continued to the present time.  In politics, he has always been a stanch Republican, having cast his first Presidential vote for A. Lincoln.  He has a personal acquaintance with President Garfield, and took an enthusiastic interest in his election.  He had been honored by his fellow-townsman by township and corporation local offices, the positions having been tendered him without solicitation.  He is a strong believer in that feature of civil service reform that the office should seek the man, and not the man seek the office."  He and his wife are both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he was a lay delegate to the last lay delegate conference.  His family consists of three sons and one daughter.  The two older sons, aged respectively sixteen and eighteen, are editors and publishers of the Richwood Reporter, a local newspaper started in January, 1882.  Although taking an active interest in public measures and busy with private affairs, be is happiest in the presence of his own family, or with a friend or two at his comfortable residence, where his hospitality is without measure.