Johnston Blakeley was born at the village of Seaford, in the county of
Down, Ireland, in the month of October, 1781. At the age of two years,
his father, John Blakeley, emigrated to this country, and soon after
his arrival settled in Charleston, South Carolina. Not meeting with the
encouragement he expected, he removed, with his family, to Wilmington,
North Carolina, in hopes of improving his business. Soon after his
establishment at this place, Mr. Blakeley was deprived of his wife, and
all his children, except his son Johnston.
Ascribing these successive and painful losses to the unhealthy
climate, which was considered peculiarly unfavorable to children, he
was induced to send his only surviving son to New York, with a view to
the preservation of his health, and to afford him an opportunity of
acquiring an education. In the year 1790, Johnston was sent to that
city and confided to the care of Mr. Hoope, a respectable merchant and
very old friend of his father. After attentively pursuing his studies
in New York, for five years, he returned to Wilmington, in order to
complete his education at the university of Chapel Hill, in that state.
Before Johnston had been one year in this institution he had the
misfortune to lose his father, and was now without a single relative
in this country, to whom he could look for advice, or protection, or
assistance, which made it necessary for him to choose a guardian. In
this choice, he was singularly fortunate in the selection of Mr. Jones,
an eminent lawyer of Wilmington, who most tenderly and generously
supplied the place of a father.
With occasional intermissions, he remained at college till the year
1799, when by some misfortune, he was deprived of the support derived
from his father, and compelled to relinquish his studies at the
university, as well as his intention of practising the law.
Having long had a predilection for a naval life, which, however, he had
from his affection to his only parent, and with a self-denial worthy of
imitation, concealed from him, he solicited, and through the friendly
exertions of Mr. Jones, obtained a midshipman’s warrant, in the year
1800. Mr. Jones, in the interim, being anxious that his young ward
should fulfil the wishes of his deceased parent, kindly offered to
receive him as a member of his family, and afford him every facility
in his power to complete his legal studies. Johnston, unwilling to
accumulate obligations he might never be able to repay, and stimulated
by a clear perception of the line of life he believed nature had marked
out for him, declined this generous offer.
In every subsequent situation, he retained and demonstrated the most
grateful recollection of the friendship of Mr. Jones, and to the end of
his life acknowledged him as his benefactor.
The gentleman who kindly furnished materials for this biography
writes thus: “As anything which illustrates the character of so much
departed worth, especially when the qualities of the heart are so well
calculated to excite our admiration, cannot but be interesting, I have
furnished a few extracts from the letters of Captain Blakeley, written
to me at various periods. Having been deprived of his father at an age
when the desire of knowing something of his family was beginning to be
felt, it was not in his power to gratify his inquiries on that subject
in a satisfactory manner, until May, 1811, when I had the pleasure
of opening a correspondence with him.” In his first letter, dated on
board the United States brig Enterprise, May 9th, 1811, he manifested
his anxiety to obtain the wished for information, relative to his
connections, in the following manner.
“It would afford me great satisfaction to hear from you all the
information you possess respecting my relations.
“This trouble your goodness will excuse, when I inform you, that for
fourteen years I have not beheld one being to whom I was bound by any
tie of consanguinity.”