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The Supreme Court of Missouri. July 28, 1813, on a farm, to which he often the then terra incognita called Dakota. He referred in after-life as little more than a did not find his surroundings congenial to granite rock, compared with the magnificent his tastes, and after organizing the courts of prairies and fertile bottoms of the West, his that Territory, and indulging in frontier idle father removed to Whitestown, New York, ness until 1863, he became interested in the in 1821. Here Philemon did farm-work, and political struggle then pending in Missouri, and in 1864 removed to St. Joseph in that attended winter school at the Steuben Acad emy. He afterward studied at Oneida In State. In 1866 Judge Bliss was elected Probate stitute and Hamilton College, either working Judge of Buchanan

for his board or boardCounty, and was ap inghimselfin his room, pointed also curator of being in exceedingly the State University. limited means, owing In 1868 he was elected to his father's want of to the Supreme Bench, prosperity. In 1833 and for four years he entered the law was a patient, indus office of Theodore Sill trious, and popular (formerly Gould & judge of that court. Sill) at Whitesboro, Upon his retirement where he studied law from the bench he was until the fall of 1834, appointed Professor of when his health failed Law in the State Uni rapidly. He went to versity, and in 1873 Florida, and remained founded its Law De there about a year without receiving ma partment. Thishecon ducted, with marked terial benefit. Hethen ability, until his death, removed to Ohio; and which occurred in his ill-health continu August, 1889; and ing, he engaged in the with the able assist varied occupation of ance of Professor teaching, surveying, Tiedeman, he suc and clerking in a THEODORE BRACE. ceeded in building up land office. In 1841 a splendid reputation his health improved; and a large scholarship for that department. and having completed his law studies, he en tered upon the practice at Elyria, Ohio. In In 1878 he published a treatise on " Code 1848 he was elected presiding judge of the Pleading," a second edition of which was circuit composed of Lorain, Cuyahoga, Lake, issued in 1887. This work has become and Geauga Counties, Ohio, and served until standard authority throughout the country, the abolishment of the judicial offices by the and is used as a text-book in many of the Constitution of 1851. In 1854 he was elected principal law schools. In 1885 he published a treatise on Sover to Congress from a district previously Dem ocratic, and in 1856 was re-elected. His eignty, which, although it has not reached rapidly failing health compelled him to leave general circulation, has received the appro the climate of Northern Ohio, and in the bation of the students and writers upon that spring of 1861 he accepted the appointment subject, and has been pronounced by emi from President Lincoln as Chief-Justice of nent authority to be a valuable addition to