Philip P. Bliss
Rome, Bradford County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The great singing evangelist and gospel song writer lived and taught school at one time in Bradford County. The cemetery monument was built by Sunday School gifts from England and U.S. after his death in 1876.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Before he became one of the most beloved gospel songwriters of the 19th century, Philip P. Bliss taught school in Bradford County. He went on to write and lead singing at revival meetings across the country, penning hymns still sung today, until his life was cut short in 1876. So great was his following that Sunday school students in both England and the United States contributed the gifts that raised his cemetery monument.
Why it matters
Bliss belongs to the great age of American revivalism, when gospel song became a mass movement and a schoolteacher from rural Pennsylvania could be mourned by congregations on two continents.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Tioga Point Museum11.1 mi away
- Sayre Historical Society12.2 mi away
- S.R.A.C. Susquehanna River Archaeological Center14.1 mi away · 343 Broad Street, Waverly, NY
Places to stay
- Comfort Inn13.3 mi away · 2160 Elmira Street, Sayre, PA
- Econo Lodge13.4 mi away · Spring Street, Sayre, PA
- Candlewood Suites13.8 mi away · 2775 North Elmira Street, Sayre, PA
- Hampton Inn Sayre14.0 mi away · 3080 Elmira Street, Sayre, PA
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Related people
- · Philip P. Bliss
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lester Frank Ward
Wysox Township, PA · est. 1967
Lester Frank Ward (1841–1913) spent his youth in this corner of Bradford County, working alongside his brother Cyrenus in a small hub factory before the Civil War, in which he served. He went on to become a pioneering geologist and paleobotanist and the founding figure of American sociology, arguing that human societies could be improved through reason and planning. So sweeping was his intellect that admirers dubbed him "the American Aristotle."
Stephen Foster
Towanda, PA · est. 1947
In 1840-41 the young Stephen Foster lived in Towanda, staying with his older brother William, an official on the canal system then knitting the Pennsylvania interior to distant markets. He briefly attended the academy on the hill above town during a restless boyhood that carried him among several schools. These northern Pennsylvania years came just before Foster began publishing the folk songs and parlor ballads that made him famous.
Dr. Alice Evans (1881-1975)
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Before he became the father of American popular song, a teenaged Stephen Foster passed through the Susquehanna country of northern Pennsylvania. In 1840-41 he attended Athens Academy, a small classical school that once stood on this ground, and it was here that he composed his very first piece of music, the "Tioga Waltz." The tune reportedly grew out of a school exhibition, an early flash of the melodic gift that would soon give America "Oh! Susanna" and "Camptown Races."