Acknowledgment

Charlie LeBlanc

A story about a man named George S. Bliss who like myself, worked at the GE river works in Lynn, Massachusetts. George lived in Lynn where I grew up and who again, like myself, enjoyed his vacations in the north Maine woods. George however, lived before my time. In fact he died the same year I was born 1956.
When I came upon his journals in the back storeroom of a local bookstore in Peabody, Massachusetts, it was around 1985 and I already had plans for moving up to the Moosehead lake area of Maine. George was an avid fly fisherman as well as photographer, which were his Main motivations for his trips to Maine. He was a member of the Lynn camera club and invented the lantern slide projector.
He wrote and put together many journals of his his Vacations in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee in 1939 to Star lake in the Adirondacks of New York, The Rangeleys in Maine, 1905,1929 and 1931. Munsungen lake Maine, 1926. Squam Lake New Hampshire, 1910,1911 and 1914.
Most of the Journals were of his stays at The Little Lyford Pond Camps (L.L.P.C.) in the Moosehead region near Greenville Maine, 1928, 1930, 1934, 1935, 1939, 1943 and 1946. Shortly after purchasing these journals I found that the L.L.P.C. were still there and contacted the owners and told them about these journals. They were very excited having heard of George and told me that his cabin with the name "Haven of Bliss" was still there. After moving to Greenville in 1988, I brought the Lyford journals into L.L.P.C. where they found a new home in the library at the end of the dinning cabin. I like to think George would have been happy with that. Today however, the L.L.P.C. are owned by the Appalachian Mountain Club and unfortunatly the journals are being kept at their Boston Library.
He moved to Lynn from Troy, New York in 1889 to work for the Thomson-Houston Electric Co., and later the Bell Telephone Lab in Boston, as an electrical engineer. He was a man of active curiosity and the records show him as an avid joiner of social groups. He was a member of the Masons, Mt. Carmel Lodge, The sons of the American Revolution, The Nation geographic Society, American Museum of Natural History, The Saugus Iron Works Association, and a life member of The Lynn Historical Society. From 1898 to 1956 he attended regional meetings, gave public talks using his lantern slides, and compiled scrapbooks of the society's proceedings and of Lynn history. He headed the photograph committee and left many of his works in the society's collection.
Starting in 1898 he worked at General Electric as an electrical engineer at the river works. From 1924 to 1932 he worked in GE's publicity dept. and then retired to spend his last 34 years with his wife, Mary at their home at 11 Light St. in Lynn.
Before they made their way to Boston these journals were carefully copied and put online.