[2] Upon graduating from West Point in June 1880, Blake began his military career, assigned as a 2nd Lieutenant to the 6th U.S. Cavalry stationed in Arizona.

[3] Resigning from the military in 1889, Blake moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan to become a businessman, as his wife and family wanted him to settle down.

After about five years he soon found out that "'the tricks of the trade', were too deep for me"[3] and giving into his desire for adventure, headed to South Africa as a gold prospector.

[6] John's mother Sinclair T. Chitty married his father Thomas Kincaid Blake Jr. at the age of 15.

Together they lived in the officers' quarters at Fort Leavenworth, where John's first son Aldrich Blake was born on November 6, 1885.