Weston W. Bliss

From Black Hawk Slept Here

Militia Service

There are two entries for Weston W. Bliss in Le Roy Barnett's roster (page 168). They are both presumably for the same person. One entry has him listed as a private in Anderson's Company with service dates 21-May through 21-Jun 1832. The other has him listed as a private in Jackson's Company, 21-May through 4-Jun 1832.

Gravesite

Unknown

Mill Site

There are two references to Weston Bliss running a mill:

In the summer of 1831 Weston W. Bliss built a carding and cloth dressing-mill, into which he also put a run of burr stones, for gristing. The [[Winter 1831-1832|winter of 1831-2] set in early and severely, and the water in Judge Meek's race froze solid in December, and his mills were stopped all winter; Beadle, Bliss and Newton supplying the people in the meantime with flour and meal.

-- stjoseph-1877, page 21

The first wool-carding and cloth-dressing factory was built by W. W. Bliss, on Pigeon creek, as before stated, in 1831.

--stjoseph-1877, page 21

Location of the mill site

Weston Bliss had one land entry: Issue date 1/1/1831 Monroe land office, 108.76 acres. N½SW Section 8, Township 8-S, Range 11-W

This land apparently borders what is identified on Delorme Street Atlas as Mill Road, and on my UniversalMap as Fawn River Road. I rode along this road on 9-Jun-2007, but did not pay attention to what the street signs said.

This land entry seems to abut the Pigeon River on the south, and the above-mentioned road on the north. (See map fragment.)

The photo show the land once owned by Weston W. Bliss, and a sign on Lake Wahbememe just to the north, which possibly drains into the Pigeon River somewhere in the vicinity of the old mill site.

There are many anecdotes from Michigan and elsewhere in the region about the unusually severe winter of 1831-1832. The county history quoted above seems to be saying that Judge Meek's site, which was located on the smaller Fawn River (at present-day Constantine), froze solid while Bliss's site on the larger Pigeon River stayed open. The Fawn River is a tributary of the Pigeon. This information seems to imply that the mill wheel was in the River itself, which if true, seems a bit surprising to me. I would have expected there to have been some sort of mill pond, and that it would have frozen every bit as solidly as the Fawn River.

The Beadle mentioned above had a mill at Flowerfield, to the northwest.

External Links

A marriage index for Washtenaw County from the MiGenWeb Archives lists a Weston Bliss