The first two owners of the Taylor-Bliss Second Empire Victorian house were Archibald Taylor, born 1840 in Northern Ireland, and Delos Bliss, born 1841 in Cortlandt County, New York.

They established businesses that bore their names and moved in a rapidly expanding industrialized world. The first owner, Taylor, built his grand house in what was then known as Highwood near the new train station.

Archibald Edwin Taylor (1840-1877) was a successful linen merchant and co-partner of the import firm of Smith & Taylor. He emigrated from Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, where his father had a large flax mill which traded under the name James Taylor &
Sons.

In 1867 Taylor married Emma Egenton Hall, the daughter of the Honorable George Hall, the first Mayor of Brooklyn. Archibald Taylor died at age 37 of pneumonia at the home of his uncle in Warren Point, NJ. He is buried in the Hall family plot in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, alongside his wife Emma and their sons who had predeceased him. In the Victorian tradition, his family received mourning rings as tokens of remembrance. His two surviving children, Emma and Bessie were sent to Ireland to be raised by Archibald’s sister, Mary.

Delos Bliss (1841-1918) was the second owner of the house which he called Stonegarth. He rose from errand boy to company salesman to manager of a Jersey City lumber business by the time he was nineteen. He invented a mechanical means of nailing and printing on wooden boxes that were supplied to the government during the early days of the Civil War. Later, Dodge & Bliss Company had factories in New Jersey and New York and shipped to Europe and South America.

In 1864 Delos Bliss married Emily Fielder, daughter of the Honorable James F. Fielder of Jersey City. Her brother, George Fielder, was a US Congressman and Civil War officer; her nephew, James Fairman Fielder, became the 35 th Governor of New Jersey.

Delos and Emily had seven daughters, five of whom married and lived in Highwood and Englewood. Most notably, daughter Ethel Bliss married Dan Fellows Platt, later a Mayor of Englewood. Several hundred guests attended their elegant wedding reception on the piazza at the Bliss home (Englewood Press, October 1900). The Platts came to be widely known for their political, social service and philanthropic work, and later for Dan Platt’s Renaissance art collection.

Delos Bliss was actively involved in his adopted city of Englewood. He served as director and
vice-president of Palisades Trust & Guaranty Company, member of the first Englewood Fire
Association, and vestryman of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. He and his wife Emily, known for her genial personality, were “held in high esteem by everyone” (Englewood Press, July 20, 1918).

b. 1864 Salem, NY
d. 1957 Englewood, NJ
buried Salem, NY

James & May McKinney (3rd owners) purchased the Second Empire House in 1920 from the heirs of Delos Bliss and lived there for many years.

James F. McKinney began his banking career in Kansas and Minnesota before moving to Englewood. He became the first treasurer of Palisades Trust & Guaranty serving with first bank president Abram De Ronde and other prominent Englewood trustees. In a measure of his esteem Mr. McKinney, Dr. Daniel Currie, former mayor of Englewood, appointed him co-executor of his will in 1911.

McKinney was active in the civic and cultural life of Englewood and served as
deacon and trustee of the First Presbyterian Church. During the first War, he succeeded in raising $85,000 in one day for the campaign efforts of the Liberty Loan Bond Committee (Book of Englewood, 1922). He later rose to bank president, serving until his retirement in 1942 having spent 54 years (1888-1942) in the banking industry. He was president of the Bergen County Bankers Association and is listed in the Journal of American Bankers Association, 1912. A frontpage article in the Englewood Press, July 1922, tells the story of May McKinney encountering a “well-dressed” burglar in the hallway of her home at 509 Engle Street. She stood her ground and picked up the phone, causing the man to flee the house. The Englewood police gave chase but lost him and his accomplice in the Palisades woods.

May McKinney died in 1943. James McKinney remained a widower and died in 1957 at the age of 94. His services were held at the First Presbyterian Church. The McKinneys were survived by a son, Stanley J. McKinney and three grandchildren.

James McKinney’s great-granddaughter, Joanne McKinney Murphy (Shelton, CT)
has provided the Englewood Historical Society with the oldest known photos of the interior and exterior of the Second Empire house.

That is why your membership dues are so important right now. We hope that you can give generously and help preserve this community landmark.