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William Henry Bliss (1844–1932)

William Henry Bliss (1844–1932)

William Henry Bliss was born on October 7, 1844, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He studied law and was admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1871. He married Anna Louisa (Annie Louise) Woods (b. 1850) on April 6, 1874; they had two children, Robert Woods Bliss and Annie Louise Bliss. After the death of his first wife, he moved to New York City in 1893 and married Anna Dorinda Blaksley on April 14, 1894. The couple moved to Santa Barbara, California, in 1914, and completed their Montecito estate, Casa Dorinda, in 1918. William Henry Bliss served as U.S. district attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri at Saint Louis (1876–1887), as vice president and general solicitor of the Saint Paul and Duluth Railroad Company, as associate counsel of the Northern Pacific Railroad, as a director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and as a member of the American Bar Association, the Municipal Art Society of New York, the Pilgrims Society, the National Child Labor Committee, and the Bohemian clubs of San Francisco and Santa Barbara. In 1921, he informally separated from Anna Barnes Bliss and moved to 2003 Santa Barbara Street in Santa Barbara. He died in Santa Barbara, California, on May 5, 1932.