His father and namesake was an inventor and partner of the Blake Brothers manufacturing firm.

[3] Blake graduated from Yale in 1857, after which he spent a year at Sheffield Scientific School.

Following his time at Sheffield, he traveled to Europe, where he studied chemistry and physics in the universities of Heidelberg, Marburg, and Berlin.

[7] Among her family was uncle Nicholas Gouverneur Ogden, a partner of John Jacob Astor.

[8] Together, Eli and Helen were the parents of: Blake died on October 1, 1895, in Hampton, Connecticut.