JOHN BLISS, the third son and fourth child of Samuel and Ann (daughter of Deacon John Elderkin) Bliss, of Norwich, Connecticut, was born there October 23, 1690.
He studied theology, and about December, 1714, began to preach in the town of Hebron, Connecticut. The General Assembly authorized in October, 1716, the organization of a church there, but it was not until November 19, 1717, that he was ordained pastor. After some years, charges of habitual intemperance were brought against him, by some among his people who were disaffected, and the Hartford South Consociation met at Hebron, November 16, 1731, to investigate the case. They decided that the charges were not proved, and he continued in office until late in 1733 or early in 1734, when on account of a serious division in his church he was dismissed by a council.
He soon after declared himself an Episcopalian, and was followed by a number of his adherents among his former parishioners. A house of worship was built in 1735, and Mr. Bliss for the remainder of his life read service to the congregation, but never crossed the ocean to receive Episcopal orders.
He died in Hebron, February 1, 1741–2, aged 51 years.
His first wife Anna, by whom he had ten children, died February 2, 1731–2; and on the 14th of December following, he was married to Hannah, daughter of Deacon Phineas [Stephen] Post, of Columbia Society, in the adjoining town of Lebanon, and widow of David Barber, of Hebron, who bore him two sons, the younger of whom was graduated at this College in 1760.
After Mr. Bliss's death, she married, October 27, 1742, Captain Benoni Trumble, the grandfather of the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Trumbull (Y. C. 1759).
AUTHORITIES.
Beardsley, Hist. of the Episc. Church in Conn., i, 99.
Bliss Genealogy, 40, 47.
Savage, Geneal. Dict, i, 201.
Pres. Stiles, MS. Eccl. Hist. of N. England.
Trumbull, Hist. of Conn., ii, 435; and MSS. concerning Hebron.
