Bliss House History
If walls could talk, think of the stories the walls of the Bliss House could tell! The white frame structure with the brick filled walls stands on its new foundation south of the tracks on Main Street in Sugar Grove, filled with records and memoirs of over on hundred and seventy years. The move to Main Street in 1997 was the second move for the structure from its original site at the corner of Bliss Road and Merrill Road.
It is recorded that on the 22nd day of November, 1838, the frame for the house was erected for Peleg Young Bliss (P.Y. Bliss) by a man known as “ Boss “ Read. The following spring, before the house was completed, the Methodists held their quarterly meeting in one of the rooms.
On the first day of June, 1839, P.Y. Bliss filled the new building with such merchandise as was in demand by the settlers of the day, and opened the first mercantile establishment tin Sugar Grove township. The trade extended over a territory reaching from Dundee to Yorkville, and from the borders of Kane County on the east to Johnson and Shabbona Groves, DeKalb County, on the west. According to Mr. Bliss, the annual sales exceeded those of any other in the county by thousands of dollars, which was an astounding accomplishment for that day.
Mr. Bliss had stated that in 1838, he rode horseback from his cabin in Sugar Grove to the county court house in Geneva, and saw nor a house nor living soul along the way. That simple statement attests to the remoteness of the area at that time, and may have sown the seed for the need of a general mercantile in the township.
Most of the citizenry of Sugar Grove Township was originally of New England stock, with their roots in an area known for their strict adherence to record keeping. There were a few individuals who kept journals or at least passed their family lore on to their descendants, but much of the significant history of the township was lost when no one saw the importance of recording events in those early years.
In a clipping from an Aurora newspaper of long ago, one sentence stands out from the remainder of an article about Sugar Grove. Although no documentation can be made, the few lines of print add greatly to the history of the Bliss House: “When Abraham Lincoln was riding the circuit as an active member of the Illinois bar, he frequently stopped at the Bliss store when driving between Geneva, county seat of Kane, and Ottawa, county seat of LaSalle.”
Abraham Lincoln rode the circuit in the early years of his law career, before he formed a partnership and established himself in Springfield. He may have been “just another circuit rider” at the time he passed through Sugar Grove. He was know to have visited Aurora on more than one occasion, so why not Sugar Grove and the only mercantile store in the area? The P.Y. Bliss store would have been a welcome sight to a rider traveling the dirt trail of the day, hot and dusty in summer and undoubtedly muddy after a rain.
The combination home and store was moved across Bliss Road from the prominent corner where it had stood, and P.Y. Bliss’s son Harrison built a larger, grander home on the site. The smaller house sheltered many families during the following century, as it grew shabbier in appearance with each passing decade.
In 1997, the second move for the Bliss House was from the Bliss Road – Merrill Road area, south to Main Street within the Village of Sugar Grove. It was discovered at the time the house was jacked from its foundation, that the old building weighed far more than anticipated. It was then it was discovered that the walls were filled with bricks! While bricks act as a poor source of insulation, they did serve as a deterrent to frost build-up between the exterior clapboards and the horsehair plaster on the interior. The newly discovered weight of the bricks cause a beam to crack, but once the house was secured, the move south began.
Because of the overpass on Route 47, the structure was forced to take a rather roundabout route to its new location. The house was transported east along Galena to Gordon Lane, south to Prairie, then west on Prairie, and back to Main Street to the newly prepared foundation awaiting the arrival of the 150-year old house.
The restored Bliss House now serves as home to the Sugar Grove Historical Society. The rear of the building where the original kitchen addition had once been is used for commercial business. Preservationist Barbara Hollmier oversaw the move and five years of restoration work.
The preservation of the Bliss House is important because of its historical significance to the community. The use to which it is now assigned as a repository for artifacts, journals, maps, court records, and genealogical records, is quite fitting with the character of the house.
Source: “Sin-Qua-Sip: A History of Sugar Grove Township, Kane County, Illinois” by Patsy Mighell Paxton