History of Wakefield, (Washington County) Rhode Island United States of America

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George Bliss, Jr., lawyer, was born in Springfield, Mass., May 3, 1830; son of George and Mary S. Bliss. His father and grandfather were prominent lawyers of western Massachusetts. The son received his early education at home and in Europe. He was graduated at Harvard in 1851. During his college course he was associated with David A. Wells in the publication of the "Annual of Scientific Discovery" and of "Things not Generally Known." After his graduation he spent two years in Europe, studying at the University of Berlin and in Paris, and travelling through Sweden, southern Germany, Switzerland, northern Italy, Spain and Portugal. Returning to the United States, he studied law in Springfield, Mass., and at the Harvard law school, and entered the office of William Curtis Noyes, in New York. In the following year he was admitted to the bar. During 1859 and 1860 he was private secretary to Governor Morgan of New York, and in April, 1861, was made a member of his staff. In 1862 he was appointed paymaster-general of the state, with the rank of colonel. In the same year, as captain in the 4th New York heavy artillery, he was detailed to the staff of Major-General Morgan, commanding the department of New York. In 1862 and 1863 he organized, under authority of the secretary of war, the 20th, 26th and 31st regiments of United States colored troops, representing in this service the Union league club of New York. In 1866 he became the attorney of the metropolitan board of health and metropolitan board of excise, and with Dorman B. Eaton, as counsel, carried the litigation as to the constitutionality of the boards, and to enforce the acts creating them to a successful close, the final decisions in both being reached only in the court of appeals. Pending the litigation in the excise cases, a thousand injunctions were granted in the common pleas court alone. On Jan. 1, 1873, he was appointed United States attorney for the southern district of New York, which position he held for more than four years. Notable among the important cases during this period were the Robert Des Anges and Lawrence. He served as government counsel in the "Star Route Cases," 1881-82, and in 1895 was decorated by Pope Leo with the order of St. Gregory the Great for his defence of the Roman Catholic charitable institutions before the New York constitutional convention of 1894. He contributed to the North American Review and published "Law of Life Insurance," three editions, and "Annotated New York Code of Civil Procedure," four editions. He died at Wakefield, R.I., Sept. 21, 1897.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Wakefield, (Washington County) Rhode Island

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