Bliss, Stephen

Bliss, Stephen D.D., a Presbyterian minister, was born in Lebanon, N. H., March 27, 1787. He graduated at Middlebury College in 1812; was licensed by the Hopkinton Association in 1822; and ordained by the Presbytery of Salem, Aug. 4, 1825. He taught for several years inl Eastern and Central New York. In April, 1819, he with a friend opened in a cabin the first Sabbath- school in the state of Illinois. In the fall of 1820 he returned to New Hampshire on foot, and in 1821 he returned to make Illinois his home. Soon after his reception into the Presbytery, he engaged to supply two vacant churches — Carlisle, forty miles, and Fort Harrison, sixty miles, from his home; giving them one Sabbath in each month. The remaining two he spent with Wabash Church. He was pastor of Wabash Church from 1823 to 1847. In the fall of 1824 Mr. Bliss was elected to the state Senate of Illinois, and spent the next winter, until Jan. 20, in Vandalia. He was a member of the Assembly which in 1845 met at Cincinnati, and which essentially modified the testimony of the Church given in 1818 against slavery. He died Dec. 6, 1847. See Norton, Hist. of the Presb. Church in Illinois.