MR. BLISS'S ANCESTRY-HIS FATHER, JOHN BLISS-HIS EARLY DAYS-LOVE FOR MUSIC-FIRST SIGHT OF A PIANO-CONNECTION WITH THE CHURCH -INFLUENCE OF A PIOUS FATHER'S EXAMPLE-FIRST MUSICAL INSTRUCTION-W. B. BRADBURY AND BLISS'S TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.
COPY the following from a memorandum found among Mr. Bliss's papers, endorsed "P. P. Bliss, 1861," and containing the genealogy, memorial and statistics of the Bliss family, obtained from his father, uncles and "The Seventh-day Baptist Memorial:" "The earliest notice of our ancestors that we have is contained in the will of Governor Arnold, dated 1677, in which he gives to his daughter, Damaris Bliss, wife of John Bliss, a parcel of land in the precincts of Newport. Governor Arnold also mentions the name. of George Bliss as one of whom he had bought land, and whom he named as one of the first purchasers of the island of Quononicut: Beginning, then, with John Bliss-who, with his brother George Bliss, and, tradition says, one other brother, came from Wales with their widowed mother and were early settlers of Connecticut-we have the following genealogical table, which, with one exception, we know to be correct: John Bliss married Damaris Arnold, 1670. Josiah Bliss, their son, died 1748. William Bliss, son of Josiah, born 1728, married Barbara Phillips, October 20th, 1750. They had seven sons and five daughters. The third son, John Bliss, was born January 17th, 1760, and was the grandfather of the writer. He learned the trade of a shoemaker, and on the fourth day of November, 17-, married Reliance Babcock, of Dartmouth, Mass. In 1788, he moved to Greenfield, Saratoga County, New York, and purchased a farm of one hundred acres; there being at that time