Henry N. Blake
1838 – 1933

Inducted April 15, 1968

Henry N. Blake, a Harvard-educated lawyer who loved the challenge and the flummery of the western frontier, became one of Montana’s most eloquent editors and most eminent jurists.

He was born June 5, 1838, in Boston. He attended schools in New England. Blake practiced law in Boston, then joined the Union Army as a private in 1861. He was promoted to second lieutenant May 16, 1862, for “brave and meritorious conduct in action.” He was wounded in the battles of Bull Run and Spotsylvania and was discharged as a captain in 1864. His war experiences are described in his book, “Three Years in the Army.”

At the age of 27, Blake left Boston for Montana, where he labored unsuccessfully for 10 days in the Virginia City gold fields. In August 1866, he became the second permanent editor of Montana’s first newspaper, the Virginia City Montana Post. Blake later wrote that he had been selected “for this responsible position upon the presumption that, having been born and educated in New England, I must be capable of thinking for myself and expressing in correct English an opinion on public affairs.”

Remembered as a pugnacious editor of the Montana Post from August to the end of December 1866, Blake crusaded zealously for development of mining and agricultural interests in Montana, for efficient courts and government and against Democratic party leaders and activities.

He encountered much difficulty in obtaining news from the states and supplies from Salt Lake City. He once said, “When the outside world was cut off by winter snows, the cry of the ‘devil’ for copy . . . produced a thrill of terror in the editorial breast similar to the fire alarm at midnight.”

The Montana Post became a tri-weekly under his direction. His first fee as a lawyer in Montana was for drawing up the articles of the Virginia City Typographical Union.

Blake became U.S. Attorney for Montana in 1869, district attorney in 1871, associate justice of the Montana Supreme Court in 1875 and, in 1889, chief justice, a position he held when Montana became a state.

In 1874 and 1875 he was editor and part owner of the Virginia City Montanian.

Blake died in November 1933, at the age of 95. In his final years, he was the oldest living graduate of Harvard University.

Return to Hall of Fame main page

Return to UM School of Journalism