Peleg Young Bliss: Early Settler and Businessman

Peleg Young Bliss (P.Y. Bliss)

Peleg Young Bliss was one of the earliest settlers and businessmen in Sugar Grove. He was born in 1806 in Vermont and passed away in Sugar Grove in 1888 at the age of 82.

As a young boy growing up at the age of nine, he was indentured to a man in Moretown, Vermont. After an unfortunate experience, he ran away and found himself in Strafford, Vermont. The Honorable Judge Jedediah H. Harris took him under his wing, cared for him as a foster father, and helped him learn to be a prosperous businessman. P. Y. Bliss became a good writer and authored a policy adopted by the United States government that would grant lands to settlers who planted trees for timber. (Source: “A Genuine Vermonter”, Vermont Watchman and State Journal, Montpelier, Vermont, Volume 74-3805, No. 49, September 17, 1879.)

In 1837, P.Y. Bliss settled in Sugar Grove. “On the 22d day of November, 1838, a man popularly known as "Boss" Read, who still lives in Blackberry, erected for P. Y. Bliss a frame house, which is still occupied by its original owner, on its original site. In the Spring of 1839, the Methodists held their quarterly meeting in one of its rooms, before it was quite completed; but religious exercises had been introduced into the township some time previous, the first sermon having been delivered by the devout and conscientious 'Father' Clarke." (Source: “Past and Present of Kane County, Illinois. 1898” at page 415.)

Mr. Bliss stated that, “in riding from his residence, in the following year [1838], direct to Geneva, he passed not a house, furrow nor fence of any kind, and that the old Court House at the county seat was the first building which appeared to his view.” (Source: “Past and Present of Kane County, Illinois. 1898” at page 413.)

“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.” (Source: “Sin-Qua-Sip: A History of Sugar Grove Township, Kane County, Illinois” by Patsy Mighell Paxton at page 83.)

“On the 1st of June, 1839, Mr. Bliss filled the new building with such goods as are demanded by the country trade, and opened the first mercantile establishment in the township. Its trade extended over a territory reaching from Dundee to Yorkville, and from the borders of Kane County on the east to Johnson's and Shabbona Groves, DeKalb County, on the west. No other store in Kane County ever drew such a wide range of custom, and, according to Mr. Bliss, the annual sales exceeded those of any other in the county by thousands of dollars.” (Source: “Past and Present of Kane County, Illinois. 1898” at page 415.)

“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.’” (Source: “Sin-Qua-Sip: A History of Sugar Grove Township, Kane County, Illinois” by Patsy Mighell Paxton at page 83.)

In 1842, P.Y. Bliss married Helen Louis Mather, and they had two children: Janette Bliss (1844 – 1887) and Jedediah Harris Bliss (1849 – 1929), named after the Honorable Jedediah H. Harris who helped P.Y. Bliss as a young boy.

In 1843, P.Y. Bliss was one of the signers of the Constitution for the Sugar Grove Farmers Institute. (Source: “Sin-Qua-Sip: A History of Sugar Grove Township, Kane County, Illinois” by Patsy Mighell Paxton at page 80.)

In 1845, P.Y. Bliss was appointed by the Illinois General Assembly as a commissioner to locate a State road crossing the Fox River, and the designed meeting place was Bliss’s store in Sugar Grove. The State road today is known as Illinois Route 34, and has become a very busy and major route through Kane, DuPage, and Cook Counties.  According the “Laws of the State of Illinois passed by the Fourteenth General Assembly at Their Regular Session. 1845,” the Act stated:

“In force, January 21, 1845. An Act to locate a State road from Little Rock in Kane County, to the steam mill bridge on the Des Plaines River in Cook County. 

“Section 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, that Peleg Y. Bliss of Kane County, Hiram E. Leonard and Edward Eldridge of DuPage County, be, and the same are hereby appointed commissioners, to view, survey, mark and locate a State road from Little Rock, Kane County, crossing Fox River near Snider’s mill in said county, and terminate at the steam mill bridge on the Des Plaines River in Cook County.

“Section 2. The said commissioners, or a majority of them shall meet at Bliss’s store in Sugar Grove, Kane County, on the first Monday in April or within four months thereafter, and after being duly sworn before some justice of the peace faithfully to discharge their duties according to the provisions of this act, shall proceed to view, mark, survey and locate said road on the nearest and most eligible ground from point to point, having due regard to private property and public convenience, and shall make return to the county commissioners’ courts of the several counties through which the same shall pass, which return shall be entered of record and filed in the office of the county commissioners’ courts, and said road shall be a public and State road and kept in repair as other State roads are.

“Section 3. The said commissioners, surveyor and assistants shall receive such compensation for their services as the county commissioners’ courts of the several counties through which said road shall pass, shall deem right and proper. Approved, January 21, 1845.” “Laws of the State of Illinois passed by the Fourteenth General Assembly at Their Regular Session. 1845,” at pages 218-219.

As noted above, the State road that P.Y. Bliss helped to survey and locate is now known as Illinois Route 34, and has become a very busy and major route through Kane, DuPage, and Cook Counties.

Mr. Bliss’s house and store was later relocated from its corner on Bliss Road and Merrill Road to Main Street in Sugar Grove in 1997 to become the Bliss House Museum and home of the Sugar Grove Historical Society.