Item 0040 - Letter, 28 December 1886

Rev. Daniel Bliss was born on August 17, 1823, in Georgia, Vermont.

He was a Christian missionary and the founder of the American University of Beirut. He spent much of his youth in the state of Ohio. He began to support himself at the age of sixteen by farming, tanning, and tree grafting. He graduated from Kingsville Academy in 1848 and went on to attend Amherst College. After graduation in 1852, he went on to attend Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts to prepare for foreign and overseas missions. In 1855, he was ordained and left to Alley, Lebanon where he worked with his wife in a small school. Under his direction, the school rose into prominence in the area. He also studied Arabic. After raising funds in both the United States and the United Kingdom, he founded the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut in 1866. It later became known as the American University of Beirut (AUB). Bliss became its President, Treasurer, and Professor of Bible and Ethics. A building in the AUB and a well-known street in Beirut were named after him. He resigned in 1902 and was succeeded by his son, Howard Bliss. Bliss is the author of a “Mental Philosophy” and “Natural Philosophy” in Arabic.

In 1855, he married Abby Maria Wood. He died on July 27, 1916, in Beirut, Lebanon.