The Pierce Parents
When Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) married Jane Means Appleton (1806-63) in 1834, he was nearly thirty, a fine age for a man to marry. Mature, and financially solid enough in trade or profession to provide for a wife. She, at twenty-eight, was considered “old”.
She was a nice looking woman, petite, with fine-chiseled features and generally delicate health. Childhood tuberculosis may have contributed to her frailty. She was well read and extremely pious. She may also have been inclined toward melancholy. Those traits became more pronounced as time went on.
But the Pierces had courted for some time, and all indications are that he was eager to marry. Her family, however, was reluctant to approve. It was no secret that he liked his whiskey. And politics. But on the plus side, he was an attorney, considered particularly good looking and convivial. And he had been elected to Congress.
So marry they did – and honeymooned in Washington.
Alas, Jane quickly developed a total distaste for the country’s capital. The weather was abysmal, and her easily compromised health suffered from chills and colds. The companionship of other congressional wives was not to her liking. She considered the women ungodly, unladylike and much too focused on (gasp) politics. She wound up staying in their boarding house rooms most of the time, seldom venturing out except for church services.
Subsequent congressional sessions saw her husband going alone. But Jane now had an excuse. She had become pregnant, and motherhood, being the supreme function of a woman’s life (at least hers), her duty and inclination was to remain home in Concord, New Hampshire.
The Pierce Children
Alas again, the first Pierce son, Franklin, Jr., lived only a few days. But three years later, Frank Robert, their second son, was born healthy. And his father, elected in 1837, was now Senator Franklin Pierce.
In 1841, Benjamin Pierce was born. By then, Jane was in her mid-thirties, and realized it was likely her last chance at motherhood. When little Frank Robert was four, he contracted typhoid and died. Jane was understandably devastated, and her inherent melancholy led to two major turning points in the Pierce lives.
She became insistent that her husband resign his Senatorial seat and return to New Hampshire. His place was with his wife and child. In 1843, he duly resigned, pledged to renounce both Washington and alcoholic spirits. He focused on his law practice – and a little “local” New Hampshire politics. On occasion they visited her family in neighboring Massachusetts.
Bennie became her entire raison d’etre. Her life now revolved around her last surviving child.
Bennie had no memory of either of his older brothers. His own life revolved around trying to please his hovering mother.
Little Bennie
Bennie was a healthy child. He was mostly home schooled until he was ready for Philips Academy. Jane was well educated and her attitudes toward education were strong. Her own father had been a minister/educator, and President of Bowdoin College in Maine.
Bennie’s religious education was supreme, however. Sunday school classes were mandatory, and it is said that Jane’s great pleasure was listening to him recite his Bible lesson while she was sewing or knitting. Their pastor was a regular guest for tea or dinner. Jane was happy with her husband home and sober.
As Bennie grew, his attitudes were influenced by his mother’s strong feelings. Against politics. Against alcohol. Against anything that was not heavily dosed with religious morality and convention.
Some contemporaries have suggested Bennie was becoming priggish.
In 1852, as the great divide of political factions was becoming a chasm, Franklin Pierce had been voluntarily removed from national office for a decade. Nevertheless, he maintained a broad and active correspondence, astutely suspecting that the conflicting dilemmas might cause the Democratic Party (and he was a Democrat) to seek the rare Northerner (like himself) whose politics were acceptable to the South. He subtly pursued, all the while assuring his wife that he had been long forgotten.
When he received the Democratic nomination (after 49 ballots), he told Jane that no one was more surprised than he was.
But Bennie was said to have remarked to his mother, “I hope Papa loses. I don’t want us to live in Washington. I know we shan’t be happy there, will we Mama?”
The Freak Accident
Jane Pierce fainted at the election news, and struggled to reconcile her mind that Pierce not only was nominated, but won the election by a landslide. It was obviously God’s will, but why? Why?
Only weeks before the inauguration, The Pierces spent Christmas with her sister Mary and her husband John Aiken in Amherst – and took Bennie, now eleven and attending Philips Academy. It was not a long trip, and train travel had improved rapidly in time and speed and even comfort.
They planned to return home on January 3, 1853 – a bitterly cold day. Only a mile past the Amherst station (and there are several versions to this story), the train hit rocks (or derailed, or, or…). Bennie, said to be playing between adjoining cars (or standing near a window, or, or…), was thrown from the train (or crushed as it overturned).
It was a freak accident. Bennie was the only one killed.
His body was taken back to the Aiken home for private funeral services. His grief-stricken mother was too overcome to even attend. Nor could she accompany the casket back to Concord for burial. Nor could she attend her husband’s inaugural ceremony. It was weeks before she even arrived at the White House. It would be two years before she could even assume any limited First Lady duties.
She word black for the rest of her life.
Pierce’s good friend Nathaniel Hawthorne remarked, “Jane was never really of this world.”
Sources:
Caroli, Betty Boyd – First Ladies – Oxford University Press, 1995
Nichols, Roy Franklin – Franklin Pierce: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills – University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959 (rev.)
http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=15
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/franklin-pierce/
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