Bliss Family Burial-Place
Near the southeastern corner of Adams Township in N.E. Cass County; approximately 500 feet slightly-south-of
DUE-WEST of the large two-story more-than-a-century-old "Bliss Mansion-House" a quite sturdy and noteworthy brick structure now owned and occupied [November 18, 1941] by W. B. Eikenberry; and about 180 feet [60 yards] north of [and up an incline from] the Hoovers-to-Mexico road, which today is an unpaved, winding, elbowing county-highway. This burial-place, marked by a lone tree [13 or 14 inches in trunk diameter], is on the grassy brink of Eel River Valley's high north terrace-rim, and nearly 200 ft. east of the steep drop into the valley (or hollow) of a northern [spring-fed] tributary (of Eel River), formerly known as "Bliss Creek."
Burial-place is near N.E. corner of S.W. 1/4 of S.W. 1/4 of N.E. 1/4 fractional N.E. 1/4 of fractional Section 3 of T. 27N, R. 3E, 2 Indiana P.M., and is plainly shown on Skinner's 1862 map of Cass County, though apparently not on Kingman Bros.' 1878 map nor any subsequent maps.
Fieldwork (and research) for report was done by Robert B. Whitsett, Jr., of the
L'Anguille Valley Memorial
Association
Logansport, Indiana's
Cemetery Research Committee, for
The Indiana Historical Society
and Indiana State Library of
Indianapolis, Indiana, in
November and December of 1941,
and this report was mailed to Indianapolis
on January 2, 1942.
On a high, grassy, tree-less pasture or meadow, at a spot which commands a glorious view of (and down) the lower valley of Eel River, fieldworker, after much checkering of the entire locality, at last found the very firmly set base and foundation of a very old slab, and, scattered all over the surrounding region, fully thirty (30) shattered fragments which, when pieced together (in jig-saw puzzle style) gave
this much (but no more) of a message:
"In memory of Mary Bliss
wife of H. Bliss
departed ...[this life?]
June 5, ... [18--]
aged 47...[years?]
The foundation (and broken-off) base is about 300 feet west of a lone apple-tree of the same size (the sole survivor of a pioneerday orchard, formerly west of the [Eikenberry] barn and on almost brink of river's north. terrace-rim). Said foundation (etc.) is
approximately 30 ft. slightly-east-of-due-north of an isolated tree having trunk-diameter of 13 or 14 inches (but of a variety
not identified, because of absence, at this season, of any foliage) which stands on, or slightly
over, the brink of the slope leading down southward toward the highway (in the Eel River Valley).
In the immediate vicinity, fieldworker noted 2 or 3 small sunken-places which may (but might not) be sunken unmarked graves. At a distance was found a displaced fragment of an entirely different, and probably
smaller, slab, which fragment reads simply "M.B." and may (but might not!) be part of a footstone for the previously-mentioned Mary [Mrs. Henry] Bliss. There are a couple of "suspicious-looking" boulders nearby, but apparently
no other lettered stones.
Some little inquiry (and also inter-county correspondence) has successfully located two or three granddaughters of this Mrs. Mary Bliss, ---one now at Elkhart, Indiana, one at Monticello, Indiana, and one, it is said, at Frankfort, Indiana. Information obtained from
them will be found on bottom of this sheet.
Cass County's various historians seem entirely silent as to this particular pioneer family (and this burial-place). But research [at courthouse, etc.] discloses that
Henry Bliss, whose wife was named Mary, "entered" this very land in 1830 [see Cass County Tract-book, p. 92], and apparently built here, of
brick, a somewhat extraordinarily fine home (seemingly referred to in
old records as "the Mansion house"); but, without ever obtaining
full patent [for these Wabash & Erie Canal lands], he transferred or quit-claimed away on Nov. 28, 1844 his rights to Chauncy Carter, a prominent pioneer settler of
Logansport (a city about 14 miles west-southwest), who finally obtained
patent to this land in 1855. Henry Bliss's wife Mary was still living in 1844, and joined in the deed-making. ... A granddaughter, Miss Emma Griswold of Elkhart (and also Mexico), Ind., writes that this Mary Bliss's maiden-name had been Mary Howard; that her husband, a farmer, was named
not merely Henry, but Henry H. Bliss; that there several unmarked graves in this cemetery. Another granddaughter, Mrs. Mary E. Davis, 102 Tippecanoe St., Monticello, Ind., writes that her G.F., Henry Bliss, came to Cass County from
Ohio (state). ....No reply has yet been received from the third granddaughter, Mrs. Jennie Rodgers, of Frankfort, Indiana.
END OF REPORT
Cemeteries of Cass County Indiana
This report was transcribed 9 December 2006 by Debby Beheler for the Cass County INGenWeb.
