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County: Buchanan
Term of Service on the Supreme Court of Missouri: November 1868 – August 1872
Judge Philemon Bliss was born July 28, 1813, in North Canton, Hartford, Connecticut.[i] In 1821, his father relocated the family to a farm in Whitestown, New York.[ii] Bliss worked on the family farm while attending school at Steuben Academy in New York.[iii] He later studied at Oneida Institute and then, in 1832, at Hamilton College.[iv]
In 1833, Bliss joined the law office of Theodore Sill at Whitesboro, where he studied until 1834.[v] In the fall of 1834, Bliss moved to Florida for relief from medical ailments.[vi] He received no medical benefit from the move south, so in 1835, he relocated to Ohio, where he worked as a surveyor, teacher and clerk, while his health improved and he finished his legal studies.[vii] In 1838, Bliss was admitted to the Ohio bar and entered into a law practice with his brother, A.A. Bliss, in Elyria, Ohio.[viii] From 1838 to 1847, he continued to practice law in Ohio.[ix] During the winter of 1848-1849, Bliss was elected by the Ohio legislature to be the presiding circuit court judge for the 14th judicial district, serving the counties of Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake and Lorain.[x] He served in that position until the Ohio constitution of 1851 abolished the judicial offices.[xi]
Bliss left Ohio in 1861, when he was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to be the first chief justice of the new Dakota Territory.[xii] He resided in and organized the courts of the Dakota Territory until the fall of 1864.[xiii] During that time, he also became increasingly interested in politics in Missouri[xiv] and, in 1864, relocated to St. Joseph, Missouri.[xv] Two years later, he became a probate judge in Buchanan County (where St. Joseph is located), serving until 1868.[xvi] In 1867, the legislature elected Judge Bliss to be a curator of the State University (now the University of Missouri-Columbia).[xvii] He continued serving as a curator until he died.[xviii]
On November 3, 1868, Judge Bliss was elected to the Supreme Court of Missouri for a four-year term.[xix] He served with the Court until August 27, 1872,[xx] when he was elected by the directors of the State University to be a professor of law.[xxi] He also became the first dean of the School of Law at the University of Missouri (which had been established May 8, 1872)[xxii] and served in that capacity until his death.[xxiii] While at the law school, Bliss wrote Of Sovereignty in 1885 and A Treatise upon the Law of Pleading in 1878, both of which were highly regarded and widely read.[xxiv]
Judge Philemon Bliss died August 25, 1889, in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was buried in the Columbia Cemetery in Columbia, Missouri.[xxv]
[i] Horace W. Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, (Boston, MA: The Boston Book Company, 1891), 183. See also “Obituary Record For 1889-1890, Class of 1832, Philemon Bliss,” Seventy-Eighth Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Hamilton College Catalogue, for the Academic Year, 1889-1890, (Utica, NY: Ellis H. Roberts & CO., 1889), 58, accessed on July 18, 2018. Information available from Archive.org.
[ii] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183.
[iii] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183.
[iv] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183. See also: “Obituary Record For 1889-1890, Class of 1832, Philemon Bliss,” Seventy-Eighth Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Hamilton College Catalogue, for the Academic Year, 1889-1890.
[v] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183.
[vi] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183
[vii] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183
[viii] W. W. Williams, History of Lorain County, Ohio, with Illustrations & Biographical Sketches of Some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers, (Philadelphia, PA: Williams Brothers, 1879), 49, accessed on July 18, 2018. Information courtesy of Archive.org, available from https://archive.org
[ix] Williams, History of Lorain County, Ohio, 49.
[x] Williams, History of Lorain County, Ohio, 49.
[xi] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183. See also: Williams, History of Lorain County, Ohio, 137.
[xii] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183. See also, Williams, History of Lorain County, Ohio, 49. See also: “Bliss, Philemon, (1813-1889),” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present Website. See also: “Philemon Bliss,” The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, IN), August 26, 1889, page 2, column 5, accessed July 23, 2018. Information courtesy of Newspapers.com.
[xiii] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183. See also: Williams, History of Lorain County, Ohio, 49.
[xiv] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183.
[xv] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183. See also: Williams, History of Lorain County, Ohio, 49.
[xvi] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183. See also, Rossiter Johnson and John Howard Brown, The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Volume 1, (Brown, Boston, MA: The Biographical Society, 1904), 338. See also: “Probate Judges,” History of Buchanan County, Missouri, Containing A History of the County, its Cities, Towns, etc., (St. Joseph, MO: St. Joseph Steam Printing Company, Printers, Binders, Etc., 1881), 368, accessed on July 23, 2018. Information courtesy of Archive.org.
[xvii] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183. See also, The Memphis Reveille, (Memphis, MO), February 16, 1867, page 1, column 21. Information courtesy of the Missouri State Historical Society website.
[xviii] E. A. Green, “The Law Department,” M.S.U. Independent (Columbia, MO), May 11, 1903, 9, Vol. X, No. 29. Information courtesy of Missouri Digital Heritage Site. Missouri State Archives website.
[xix] The Bolivar Free Press Staff, “National Union Republican Nominations,” The Bolivar Free Press, (Bolivar, MO), July 30, 1868, accessed July 18, 2018. Information courtesy of The State Historical Society of Missouri website. See also: Michael K. McGrath, Secretary of State, ed., Official Directory of Missouri, (St. Louis, MO: John J. Stationary & Printing Company, 1885), 134.
[xx] The Canton Press Staff, “State University,” The Canton Press, (Canton, MO), Tuesday, August 27, 1872, page 2, column 2, accessed July 30, 2018. Information courtesy of the Missouri State Historical Society Website.
[xxi] The Missouri Republican Staff Report, “Meeting of The State Curators. University Chairs Filled.” The Missouri Republican, (St. Louis, MO), August 30, 1872, page 1, column 1. Information available from The State Historical Society of Missouri Website.
[xxii] The Savitar Staff, “The School of Law,” The Savitar-The University of Missouri Yearbook, 1916, 37, accessed July 13, 2018. Information courtesy of the Missouri Digital Heritage Website, Missouri State Archives.
[xxiii] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 184. See also, The Savitar Staff, “The School of Law,” The Savitar, 1916. See also, E. A. Green, “The Law Department,” M.S.U. Independent, (Columbia, MO), May 11, 1903, Vol. X. No. 29, Information courtesy of Missouri Digital Heritage Website, Missouri State Archives.
[xxiv] Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 183.
[xxv] Seventy-Eighth Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Hamilton College, for the Academic Year, 1889-90, 58. See also: “Bliss, Philemon, (1813-1889),” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present Website. See also: “Philemon Bliss,” The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, IN), August 26, 1889.
Biographical information authored by Megan Vancil, 2018, University of Missouri-Columbia.