Franklin Pierce Facts - 14th President of USA

This article is about Franklin Pierce facts the 14th President of United States. Franklin Pierce was born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire in a log cabin on November 23, 1804.

Franklin Pierce Biography

Franklin Pierce Facts - His father was Benjamin Pierce, a frontier farmer and Revolutionary War Soldier, militia general for the state, and Democratic-Republican governor of New Hampshire twice.

His mother was Anna B. Kendrick. He was number five out of eight children, with three sisters and four brothers. A distant cousin of his is Former First Lady Barbara Bush.

Franklin Pierce Education

Pierce went to school at Hillborough Center and then went to Hancock Academy when he was eleven. He was moved to Francestown Academy in 1820 but returned home barefoot after becoming homesick.

His father put him in the family wagon, drove him half of the way to the academy, and left him there on the roadside, not saying even one word to the boy. He walked the seven miles to get back to school.

Later in the same year, he was transferred to Phillips Exeter Academy where his goal was to prepare for college, and in 1820, he entered Brunswick, Maine's Bowdoin College, where he was involved in political, debating, and literary clubs. He met and started a friendship with the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. By 1827 he had started his own law practice after having been admitted to the bar.

Franklin Pierce Marriage 

Pierce married Jane Means Appleton on November 19, 1834, and she seemed to be much the opposite of him. She was very shy and religious, often ill, pro-temperance, and from an aristocratic Whig family. All three of their children died in childhood. The third child, living the longest, was killed in a train wreck at age eleven.

Jane was not pleased with her husband's politics and did not enjoy life in Washington, D.C. She wanted her husband to resign from the Senate and come back to New Hampshire, and he did in 1841.  After her last child was killed, she suffered from sadness and began to distance herself from Franklin during his presidency.

Their three children were Franklin Pierce Jr., who died three days after his birth, Frank Robert Pierce, who died at four years old from epidemic typhus, and Benjamin Pierce, who died in a railway accident that his parents saw happen.

President Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce served as President of the United States from 1853 until 1857. He is currently the only president from New Hampshire. He was a Democrat who was referred to as a "Doughface," which means that he was a Northerner but had Southern sympathies.

He served in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. He served in the Mexican-American War and was a brigadier general. He had a private law practice. He was nominated as a dark horse candidate. Because of his friendly and un-offensive personality, Pierce was able to make many friends; however, he suffered much tragedy in his personal life.

He has a reputation as one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States. When he decided to favor the Kansas-Nebraska Act, his popularity in the North decreased. When some of his diplomats issued the Ostend Manifesto, his credibility as president was damaged further.

Pierce was abandoned by his political party and was not re-nominated to run for president in 1856. He was instead replaced by James Buchanan as the Democratic Party's candidate. After he lost the nomination, he continued to struggle with alcoholism and his marriage fell apart.

During the American Civil War, his reputation was destroyed when he supported the Confederacy, particularly when his correspondences with Confederate President Jefferson Davis were leaked into the press. In 1869, Pierce died from cirrhosis.

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NICKNAME
Young Hickory of the Granite Hills

BIRTH
November 23, 1804, in Hillsborough New Hampshire

MOTHER
Anna Kendrick

FATHER
Benjamin Pierce

SISTERS
Nancy M., Harriet B. and Half-sister Elizabeth Andrews

BROTHERS
Benjamin Kendrick, John Sullivan Charles Grandson, and Henry Dearborn

MARRIAGE
Jane Means Appleton ON November 19, 1834, in Amherst, New Hampshire

CHILDREN
Franklin, Frank Rover, and Benjamin

HOME
Pierce Homestead, Hillsborough Upper Village, N.H.

EDUCATION
Attended public school
Graduated from Bowdoin College 1824

RELIGION
Episcopalian

PRE-PRESIDENCY PROFESSION
Lawyer, Politician, and Soldier

MILITARY SERVICE
Mexican War: enlisted as a private in the New Hampshire volunteers
Commissioned in U.S. Army in February 1847
Brigadier General in U.S. Army (1847-1848)Resigned from the army in 1848

POLITICAL LIFE

New Hampshire legislature (1829-1833)Speaker (1831-1832)
US Representative (1833-1837)
US Senator (1837-1842)
US President one term

POLITICAL PARTY
Democrat

INAUGURATION
On March 4, 1853, at the age of 48
Franklin Pierce - Inaugural Address

Franklin Pierce Administration

PRESIDENCY
One term (March 4, 1853-March 4, 1857)

VICE PRESIDENT
William Rufus De Vane King (1853)

FIRST LADY
Jane Pierce (1853-1857)
Facts About Jane Pierce
Biography of Jane Pierce

SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENTS
John A. Campbell (1853)

Franklin Pierce Cabinet
SECRETARY OF STATE
William L. Marcy (1853-1857)

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
James Guthrie (1853-1857)

SECRETARY OF WAR
Jefferson Davis (1853-1857)

ATTORNEY GENERAL
Caleb Cushing (1853-1857)

POSTMASTER GENERAL
James Campbell (1853-1857)

SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
James C. Dobbin (1853-1857)

SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
Robert McClelland (1853-1857)

POST PRESIDENCY LIFE

Retired

DEATH
October 8, 1869, at concord New Hampshire, at the age of 64

BURIAL PLACE
Old North Cemetery, Concord, N.H.

LANDMARKS
Hillsborough, N.H. (boyhood home)
Concord, N.H. (adult home)
Old North Cemetery, Concord, N.H.