Businessman politician statesman
Aaron Bliss was born on May 22, 1837, at Peterboro, New York, United States. He was the seventh child of Lyman Bliss, who traced his ancestry back to Thomas Bliss, a settler in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1636. His mother was Ann (Chaffie) Bliss.
From his dry-goods store at Bouckville Aaron T. Bliss enlisted, October 1, 1861, in the 10th New York Volunteer Cavalry, and went to the front as a first lieutenant, becoming captain a year later. Wounded while stubbornly defending the retreat of Wilson's Raiders, he was captured and suffered imprisonment in Salisbury, Andersonville, Macon, Charleston, and Columbia prisons, escaping from the latter in November 1864. Broken health caused his resignation three months later.
In 1865 Bliss went to Saginaw, Michigan, and in the pine forests began a career that took him from a driver of logging teams to the head of one of the successful lumber firms of the Saginaw Valley. A paying farm of a thousand acres afforded recreation.
Taking a leading part in the Michigan department of the Grand Army of the Republic, Bliss was elected first to the state Senate in 1882, and next as a member of the Fifty-first Congress, 1889-1891. He was defeated for reelection to Congress; but in 1900 he wrested from six other candidates the Republican nomination for governor. He succeeded the spectacular H. S. Pingree, and was reelected in 1902.
Aaron Bliss is best remembered as thr 25th Governor of Michigan, which position he held from 1901 to 1905. He was a good administrator, and during his service as governor the educational and charitable interests of the state advanced steadily. He stood for the equal taxation of railway properties, and without being a reformer was a sound progressive. His name is also linked with the establishment of the Indian School at Mt. Pleasant and the Michigan Soldiers' Home at Grand Rapids.
Bliss was a member of the Republican Party. He was a member of the Michigan Senate from 1883 to 1889; the U. S. House of Representatives from Michigan's 8th district from 1889 to 1891.
Bliss was a member of the Freemasons and Knights Templar.
Bliss was married to Allaseba, daughter of Ambrose Phelps of Madison County, New York.
