Robert Blackstock was born in 1849 in Perth County, Ontario, to Thomas and Mary Ann Blackstock. Robert’s formal education ended at the age of nine when he was needed on the family farm. He came to Hammond in 1879 to work in the lumber industry, which he stayed in for ten years. After his time in lumbering, he went back to farming which he continued successfully for another twenty years.
In 1883 he married Mary Ann Isaac, daughter of William Isaac, another prominent family who lived on the Fraser River on the Hammond side of the Ridge. Robert and Mary Ann had five children: Nora May, Robert Harold, Nora Mary, Albert George and Theresa Melissa. Nora May died of diphtheria at the age of 5, and was buried in the Maple Ridge Cemetery, while the other four children lived to adulthood, most of them raising families in Maple Ridge.
Robert Blackstock was Reeve of the community in 1889 and then again from 1897 to 1899. Robert died in 1913, and his wife Mary Ann in 1949. Both are buried in the Maple Ridge Cemetery.