Childhood Home of
Franklin Pierce, 14th US President
Franklin Pierce (1804-1869), the seventh of nine children, spent a happy childhood in attractive surroundings of gardens and trees. The stately home has spacious rooms with vividly painted walls and exquisite stenciling. The house has a grand ballroom and a parlor decorated with imported French wallpaper-symbols of the elegance of the age.
Begun as a tavern, the Pierce Homestead soon became a gentleman's home for lively exchange among celebrities of the day - Daniel Webster, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mary Baker Eddy's favorite brother, Albert.
In 1834, Franklin Pierce married Jane Means Appleton, a shy, frail woman of a distinguished family from Amherst, N.H. Few know of their great personal losses which cast a shadow over their lives.
Pierce served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. When the Mexican War started in 1846, he quickly rose from private to brigadier general, and in 1852, he became the youngest President ever elected.
The Pierce Homestead
The Pierce Homestead was built in 1804 by Benjamin Pierce the year his son Franklin was born. The large spacious rooms, the hand stenciled walls, and the imported wallpaper, symbolize the elegance of the age.
Benjamin Pierce came to Hillsborough in 1786, almost 50 years after the town was first settled. He had served under Washington in the War for Independence, but after the war's end found himself nearly impoverished. The beauty of the land surrounding Hillsborough, and the affordable prices of land attracted him to buy a log cabin with 50 acres of land. After the death of his first wife, Elizabeth Andrews, Benjamin Pierce married Anna Kendrick. By the time the Homestead was built, Benjamin Pierce was a prosperous and prominent man. His career in public service continued for 57 years, during which he was twice Governor of New Hampshire.
The Homestead was a gathering place of great individuals. Here Daniel Webster was entertained, and in the ballroom on the second floor Benjamin Pierce drilled local militia groups, for everyone was a friend of Benjamin Pierce.
The gardens surrounding the Homestead, with their artificial pond, and lattice summer house, were of unusual beauty for their day. The Homestead is a historic reminder of the family that built it, and of an age in which a young America began to grow into the country we know today.
