Son of Samuel Bliss & Anne Elderkin of Norwich, CT. This Pelatiah Bliss is individual no. 85 in John Homer Bliss, Genealogy of the Bliss Family in America from about the year 1550 to 1880 (Boston, 1881), p. 48. (The Bliss genealogy is available as a searchable facsimile on Google books.)

Date of Death:
The will of "Pelatiah Bliss of New London No. Parish in the County of New London" is dated "This Twenty first Day of December Anno Domini One Thousand, Seven Hundrd. & Sixty two, 1762" (December 21, 1762) and was submitted for probate on February 8, 1763, after the witnesses signed on February 7th. He therefore died between 21 Dec 1762 and 7 Feb 1763, but probably closer to the latter. He was of North Parish New London (which became Montville in 1786) at the time of his death.
- New London probate file no. 586 (1763). Probate file images at Connecticut, Wills and Probate Records, 1609-1999; Hartford; Probate Packets - Billings, B-Bolles, Amos, 1675-1850, beginning at image 917/1309 at ancestry.com.

Date of Birth:
Date of birth recorded in Montville church records (Connecticut, Church Record Abstracts, 1630-1920, Volume 073 Montville, p. 13, image 16/98 at ancestry.com).

Place of burial: No record.

Pelatiah's Wives:

1) Sarah Harris (1717). Pelatiah's first wife was Sarah Harris (b. 27 Sep 1697, Montville, CT) per Montville church records, the daughter of James Harris & Sarah Rogers (she was NOT the Sarah Harris who m. John Brown!). The date of their marriage intention was 24 Dec 1717 at New London as noted in Joshua Hempstead's diary. She was the mother of Pelatiah's children.
- Connecticut, Church Record Abstracts, 1630-1920, Volume 073 Montville, image 50/98 at ancestry.com.
- See also Gale Ion Harris, "William and Elizabeth (Brockway) Harris of Conn." in The American Genealogist [TAG], Vol. 70, No. 4 (Oct 1995), esp. p. 237.
- Diary of Joshua Hempstead 1711-1758 (1901) p. 71 (also quoted in the TAG article) (online on Google books).

2) Martha (Avery) Comstock (c1743). Martha was the widow of seaman Peter Comstock, who died in 1742. Martha signed the administrator's bond for settlement of Peter Comstock's estate on 11 Jan 1742/43 (New London probate file no. 1441 (1742) for Peter Comstock (Connecticut, Wills and Probate Records, 1609-1999 – Hartford – Probate Packets, Comstock, Daniel-Copp, C, 1675-1850, image 626/1509). Martha was born about 1707, married (1) Peter Comstock about 1723, (2) Pelatiah Bliss about 1743, and died about 1753-55. She was the daughter of Samuel Avery & Elizabeth Rainsford. See John Adams Comstock, A History and Genealogy of the Comstock Family in America (Los Angeles, 1949), p. 15 (on ancestry.com).

3) Lucy (---) Harris (1756). In his will, Pelatiah identified his then-current wife as Mrs. Lucy Harris and referenced their agreement dated 16 Dec 1756. She survived him.

Pelatiah's Children:

In his 1772 will, Pelatiah named his son Pelatiah; then his nine daughters in the following order: Sarah Ransom (called Sary Ransom in the will, but Sarah Ransom elsewhere in the probate file), Elizabeth Jones, Ann Welch, Alithea Comstock, Delight Swaddle, Mary Fargo, Thankful Baker, Abigail Baker & Elphal Scovell (called Eliphal Scofield in the will, but Elphal Scovell elsewhere in the probate file); and his current wife Mrs. Lucy Harris.

His real estate was divided among his heirs at a court of probate on 16 Apr 1765. Property was divided and set out to each of his daughter's husbands, in each case "in right of his wife", so that all daughters and their husbands are named. Alithea Comstock received her share directly, as her seaman husband Joseph had recently died at sea.

The daughters may have been born in the order they are listed in the will, except perhaps for Abigail, named as the eighth daughter, but whose real estate distribution was recorded first. The children's births are not of record, so they can only be guessed at based on other information. It's possible that son Pelatiah was the youngest, based on his wife's approximate year of birth (she was b. c1744 based on her age at death).

Children in the order named in Pelatiah's will (and daughter's husbands as named in the real estate distribution):

Pelatiah Bliss
Sarah Ransom (Joshua Ransom)
Elizabeth Jones (Joshua Jones)
Ann Welch (William Welch) [d. 4 Apr 1818 age 95, so b. c1723]
Alithea Comstock [d. 13 Sep 1796 age 72, so b. c1724]
Delight Swaddle (Samuel Swaddle)
Mary Fargo (Joshua Fargo)
Thankfull Baker (Gideon Baker)
Abigail Baker (Joshua Baker)
Elphal Scovell (Elisha Scovell) [d. 17 Apr 1822 age 84, so b. c1738]

Two daughters had unusual names whose spellings are especially inconsistent: Althea/Alithea/Althear/Elethear Comstock and Elphal/Eliphal/Eliphael/Elifall Scovell.

Three daughters have death records with age at death that allow birth years to be estimated: Ann Welch (newspaper death record), Alithea Comstock (grave marker), and Eliphael Scovell (genealogical record from 1910).

Montville: In 1786 the North Parish of New London was separated from New London and incorporated as the separate town of Montville.

- Information contributed by member no. 47009592.

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Reminder: Pelatiah Bliss did not marry Martha Avery around 1725. She was at that time married to Peter Comstock. Martha did not marry Pelatiah until after Peter's death around 1742-43. Pelatiah's first wife, with whom he had all his children, was Sarah Harris. He married her in 1717 and she died around 1742. -- Information supplied by fellow findagrave.com member Meg Jimenez.