Basic Facts:
Birth: November 23, 1804 At Hillsboro, New Hampshire
Death: October 8, 1869 at Concord, New Hampshire
Married: Jane Means Appleton (1806-1863) on Nov 19, 1834
Children: 3: Franklin, Frank Robert, Benjamin
President: One term beginning March 4, 1853
Family
On November 19, 1834, Pierce married Jane Means Appleton, a daughter of the president of Bowdoin University, a Congregational minister.
Franklin and Jane Pierce were poorly matched by temperament, goals, and values. Franklin was a politician from age 23, active in the Jackson-Democrat Party. He was a heavy drinker.
Jane Pierce came from a family of prominent Whigs, an Anti-Jackson party. She was pro-temperance. She was shy and detested politics and Washington, D.C.
Jane Means Appleton Pierce was unhappy in the role of First Lady, often unable to perform her duties. She suffered from depression due to the deaths in childhood of all three of their sons. For nearly two years, she remained in the upstairs living quarters of the White House, spending her days writing letters to her dead son. She left the social chores to her aunt Abby Kent-Means and her close friend Varina Davis, wife of War Secretary, Jefferson Davis. Pierce made her first official appearance as First Lady at a New Year’s Day reception in 1855 and thereafter served as White House hostess intermittently for the remainder of her husband’s term ending in 1857.
Their three children were:
- Franklin (February 2–5, 1836)
- Frank Robert (August 27, 1839 – November 14, 1843) died at the age of four from epidemic typhus;
- Benjamin (April 13, 1841 – January 6, 1853) age 12, died in a train wreck on the way to Washington with his parents for his father’s inauguration.
Jane Pierce died of tuberculosis at Andover, Massachusetts, on December 2, 1863 at age 57.
Other:
Franklin Pierce was the fourteenth President of the United States.
Franklin Pierce was born in Hillsboro, New Hampshire on Nov 23, 1804, one of nine children.
His father, Benjamin Pierce, was a leader of the Democratic-Republican party in New Hampshire and was twice governor of the state.
During his second year at Bowdoin College in Maine, Pierce had the lowest grades out of anyone in his class. He changed his study habits, and graduated third in his class. Among his class mates were Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
In 1827 (age 23) Franklin was admitted to the bar and began practicing law. Two years later, Franklin ran for and was elected to a seat in the state legislature. He was re-elected three times and was chosen Speaker of the Lower House for two sessions.
In 1833 Pierce was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives as a Jackson Democrat. He achieved a reputation as a loyal party man and easily won reelection in 1835. He was such a proponent of Jacksonian democracy, he earned the nickname “Little Hickory”. “Jacksonian democracy” became the foundation of what is today the Democratic party.
In 1836 Franklin was elected to the U. S. Senate. His wife, Jane, constantly urged him to give up politics and return to New Hampshire. He resigned from the Senate in 1842.
Pierce left Washington but was active in state politics. He was state Chairman of the Democratic Party. In 1845 he became U. S. District Attorney for New Hampshire.
When Pierce and the Democrats began scheming to obtain the presidential nomination in 1852, they did not inform Mrs. Pierce. When he won the nomination, it is said that Mrs. Pierce collapsed and Franklin denied that he had sought the nomination.
During the election of 1852, the Whigs mocked Pierce as the “Hero of Many a Well-Fought Bottle.”
One of the Democratic party’s slogans during Pierce’s campaign for president was: “We Polked you in 1844; we shall Pierce you in 1852.”
Pierce gave his 3,319-word inaugural address from memory, without the aid of notes.
Because of religious considerations Pierce affirmed rather than swore the Presidential oath of office.
Franklin Pierce was the first President to have a Christmas tree in the White House.
He installed the first central-heating system and the first bathroom with hot and cold water in the White House.
Pierce was the only President to have no turnover in his cabinet.
Pierce’s Secretary of War was Jefferson Davis
Pierce was the only elected President who sought but did not win his party’s nomination for a second term. (He lost support due to passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Ostend Manifesto
Regarding the Civil War, Pierce opposed the use of force by the North and denounced the Emancipation Proclamation as unconstitutional.
Pierce died of cirrhosis of the liver October 8, 1869 as a result of years of heavy drinking. He was 65 years old.
His close friend Nathaniel Hawthorne said:
“…it would ruin a noble character (though one of limited scope) for him to admit any ideas that we not entertained by the fathers of the Constitution and the Republic…There is a certain steadfastness and integrity with regard to a man’s own nature (when it is such a peculiar nature as that of Pierce) which seems to me more sacred and valuable than the faculty of adapting one’s self to new ideas, however true they may turn out to be.”
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Sources:
Internet Public Library
Wikipedia/Franklin Pierce
History.com
Wikipedia/Jane Pierce
Thoughtco.com/things to know about Franklin Pierce
Whitehouse.gov
Greenman, Barbara. The Timeline History of U. S. Presidents and First Ladies. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, California, 2009.
Whitney, David C. The American Presidents. Doubleday & Company, Garden City, 1969.