Frances Blake's Family from Quebec

I grew up hearing that my great-grandfather, John Blake, had come to Atlanta, Georgia from Quebec.  He had married a woman whose brother had married John's sister, so all the kids were double-first-cousins.  John Blake had founded the Southern Belting Company in Atlanta, Georgia, a building which still stands as one of the historic sites in Atlanta.

According to Wikipedia:  The Garnett Station Place building is the former Southern Belting Company Building. Located on Forsyth Street in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, United States, the Garnett Station Building was designed by the firm of Lockwood Greene and Company and completed in 1915. In 1985 the architectural firm Stang and Newdow were retained to renovate the building into loft office space. In August 1988 the building was added the National Register of Historic Places.

                                                                      Later, John Blake's company opened another branch in New Orleans.  My grandfather eventually moved to New Orleans to work there.  The photo at left is of workers in the old building in new Orleans.  Somewhere there's another in the Louisiana Library Archives that shows an office scene.  

John Blake was born in Quebec in 1846.  He married Mary J. Rowbotham, also from Quebec.  Her brother, George, married one of John's sisters.  Later, they worked to found the Southern Belting Company in the south and the Bay State Belting Company near Boston.  

I don't know much at all about the Rowbothams.  My guess is that they grew up near the Blakes in Quebec, since the siblings married each other and were clearly good friends.  But I have not yet discovered the parents of George and Mary, although George and Mary were in a Quebec census.

John Blake was born into a large Protestant family.  His parents had immigrated to Quebec prior to their marriage.  In the 1851 Canada census, Frances Blake is listed as 34 years old, a farmer, a Protestant, and born in England.  Margaret Preston Blake is listed as 30 years old and born in Ireland.   On the census, the children were Henry (10), John (6), Mary Ann (5), Margaret (3), and a baby under 1 year.

While I have no information on when Frances Blake immigrated to Canada, I do have a record of a land purchase he made in 1837.

 Frances Blake and Margaret Preston married in Quebec, at Stoneham-Et-Tewkesbury, in 1841.

My grandmother always said that my grandfather's family was "Scotch-Irish".  Since Margaret Preston was both from Ireland and a Protestant, I'm guessing at an Ulster Scots background.  Oddly, in another census, Frances is listed as being from Ireland, which may have been just miscommunication with the census people.

I did find just a bit more about George Rowbotham and his wife Margaret Blake.  They had a house in Boston, in the neighborhood of Dorchester , at 111 Ocean Street.     Here's a link about it:  http://www.dorchesteratheneum.org/page.php?id=2134   I've found a few mentions of Mrs. George Rowbotham making trans-Atlantic cruises, including one on the Lusitania.  They seem to have gotten around more than John Blake and his family in Atlanta.  George was the treasurer of the Board of the Southern Belting Company.  I have no idea whether John held a similar position with the Bay State Belting Company, but eventually, John's son William became president of the Bay State company. 

This is the extent of my knowledge of the Blakes in my family.  I would love to learn more about the Prestons, Frances Blake, and the Rowbothams!