BLAKELEY, settled in 1853 and established as a township by a legislative act, March 9, 1874, received the name of its railway village, founded in 1867 by Elias F. Drake and I. N. Dean, by whom it was named in honor of Capt. Russell Blakeley, who was born in North Adams, Mass., April 19, 1815, and died in St. Paul, February 4, 1901. His connection with steamboating from Galena to St. Paul began in 1847, and he continued in it, as clerk and afterward as captain and traffic manager, during many years. Later he engaged in staging and expressing in Minnesota and Dakota and had large interests in banking, insurance, and railway companies. He settled in St. Paul in 1862. He was president of the Minnesota Historical Society in 1871 and vice-president from 1876 until his death and contributed to its Collections the "History of the Discovery of the Mississippi River and the Advent of Commerce in Minnesota" (8: 303-418 [1898], with his portrait and 11 plates of early steamboats). A biographic sketch of him is in these Collections (9: 665-70 [1901]).