My Great Great Grandfather John W. Bliss

Compendium History and Biography of North Dakota

Published by GEO. A. OGLE & CO. 1900

John W. Bliss - On Pages 908-909

JOHN W. BLISS, one of the prominent citizens of Lakota, Nelson County, has for many years been identified with the farming interests of Osago Township, and has made a success of his vocation, and now owns and operates more than twelve hundred acres of land on which he held his residence until recently. He has now settled his family in a comfortable home in Lakota and enjoys the fruit of many years of hard labor, which was shared equally by his faithful companion, Mrs. Bliss.

Mr. Bliss was born in Geauga County, Ohio, March 21, 1859, and was the fourth in a family of five children born to Olney and Mahala (McFarland) Bliss, both of whom now reside in Kansas. He was reared on the Ohio farm and attended several terms of college at Oberlin, Ohio, and taught school a short time in his native town, and then devoted his attention to agriculture and in the spring of 1882, with very little money in his pockets, but with a heart filled with pluck and determination, started out to make his fortune in the West. The place chosen for this was Dakota. He filed on a claim, and with an ox team began his career. The first winter spent in Dakota was, indeed, a tough one for the eastern boy, who, with another bachelor, spent the winter on the claim, going through about all the hardships known to a new country, seeing no one and living on scanty and frozen rations. The following season he worked for others, and during the summer, after putting in a small crop on his own claim, which crop was entirely hailed out, he became thoroughly discouraged and wrote to Miss Alice Cowles, a teacher in Geauga County, Ohio, to whom he was affianced, and urged a hasty marriage. She accordingly made arrangements, and together with her father and sister, came west. They were met at Grand Forks by Mr. Bliss, also by Mr. Fairbanks, who was affianced to her sister. The party proceeded to Harrisburg, where they were married November 16, 1883, by Justice of the Peace Hennessy, after which they drove to their claim, where they partook of such a feast as we think very few wedding parties ever sit down to, via: fried salt pork, water gravy and biscuits (such as only bachelors can make), and served upon dishes of every description??tin lard pail covers and jack knives playing an important part. And there, in their one room, with a homemade pine bedstead and table, an old cook stove and three chairs, the bride and groom began housekeeping, and then began also the years of successes and failures which came to their lot. They have now a comfortable home and one which may well be the pride of our subject and wife, who have labored together with a will and cheerful hands and hearts. Land was purchased from time to time and they now own a tine estate in Nelson County. Three children have been born to bless the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bliss, who bear the names of Jay W., Vera M., and Eva Gertrude. Mr. Bliss served continuously on the town and school board during his residence in Osage Township and in 1895 was elected to the office of county commissioner of Nelson County, in which capacity he served three years. He is also a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen and politically is a Republican. [History Biography of North Dakota. Transcribed by Laurel Durham]

#success #history #determination #perseverance #vocation