Bliss was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1852. He moved with his parents, Edwin J. Bliss (a carpenter and later contractor) and Mary Tuttle (Osborn) Bliss, to Ann Arbor, Michigan at age five and attended the public schools in Ann Arbor, graduating from high school in 1869.\n', '

Bliss enrolled at the University of Michigan as a civil engineering student in 1869. He played college baseball there as a catcher from 1869 to 1873. Teammate Frederick Stearns said of Bliss: "He was a wonder. Besides being a great catcher, he had the unusual distinction of always playing with his trousers tucked in long boots." Baseball historian Peter Morris has cited Bliss\'s use of long boots as an early innovation of protective gear for catchers, i.e., an early form of shin guards.\n', '

Bliss graduated from the University of Michigan in June 1873 with a degree in civil engineering. Bliss worked as a civil engineer from 1873 to 1875 in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. In the fall of 1877, he returned to the University of Michigan as a student in the law department and received an LL.B. degree in the spring of 1879.\n', '

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