Jane Pierce

First Lady

• Born: March 12, 1806
• Birthplace: Hampton, New Hampshire
• Died: December 2, 1863
• Place of death: Andover, Massachusetts

President:Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857

Overview

Jane Pierce, one of the most tragic First Ladies, eschewed the political life and wished that her husband, Franklin Pierce, would not seek public office. Her White House tenure demonstrates how a very reluctant and bereaved First Lady coped with her duties, often by relying on surrogate hostesses. Jane possessed many of the traits associated with the ideal for women of her time. She was delicate and spiritual, and she desired to remain in her own domestic sphere, away from the often coarse political world of her husband.

Early Life

Born March 12, 1806, in Hampton, New Hampshire, Jane was the third of six children of the Reverend Jesse Appleton and Elizabeth Means Appleton. Jane’s father was a Congregational minister and president of Bowdoin College in Maine. Following his death in 1819, the family went to live with her mother’s wealthy relatives. Petite, dark-haired Jane was both well educated for her day and devout. In the 1820’s, she attended Catharine Fiske’s Young Ladies Seminary in Keene, New Hampshire.

Marriage and Family

Franklin Pierce attended Bowdoin College in the early 1820’s with Jane’s brother William. There he was educated by her future brother-in-law, Alpheus Packard. Although Franklin was the son of a Revolutionary War hero, Jane’s family objected to her marrying him. While he was a Democrat, the Appletons were Federalists, and they did not consider his tavern-owning family their equals. After a long courtship and his election to the U.S. Congress, the gregarious Franklin finally married shy Jane on November 19, 1834, in Amherst, New Hampshire.

Franklin whisked Jane away from the shelter of rich relations to the roughness of Washington, D.C. Legislators of the time lived in boardinghouses, and this “mess” life challenged frail Jane. Living conditions were often crude and uncomfortable, and politics dominated daily life. During the miserable, hot summer months in Washington, Jane’s health suffered. She was often sickly and melancholy, even before a series of tragedies beset her and her husband.

In 1835 Jane left Washington to stay with her mother and other relatives. The Pierces’ first son, Franklin Pierce Jr., was born in February 1836, but he lived only three days. The next year Jane returned to Washington with Franklin following his election to the Senate. Two more sons were born: Frank Robert in August 1839 and Benjamin in April 1841.

Jane came to oppose Franklin’s political pursuits. The heavy drinking of other politicians, she felt, aggravated her husband’s problems with alcohol. Jane observed, “Oh, how I wish he was out of political life! How much better it would be for him on every account!” In 1842 she persuaded Franklin to resign from the Senate and come home to Concord, New Hampshire, where he would be close to his family and away from bad influences. According to Nathaniel Hawthorne, his friend and campaign biographer, Franklin left the Senate to practice law and thereby provide a better living for his growing family. In 1843 the Pierces’ son Frank died of typhus fever.

In 1846 President James K. Polk asked Franklin to join his cabinet as attorney general, but Franklin declined, stating, “Besides you know that Mrs. Pierce’s health while at Washington, was very delicate.” Jane even objected to Franklin’s running for governor of New Hampshire, an office his father had held. As governor, Franklin could have gained the executive experience he lacked prior to becoming president. Not wishing to become First Lady, Jane fainted upon learning that Franklin had been nominated as a dark horse candidate for president. Benjamin wrote his mother, “I hope [Father] won’t be elected for I should not like to be at Washington and I know you would not either.” Despite Jane’s prayers to the contrary, Franklin won the presidential election in November 1852.

His happiness was short-lived. The Pierces saw their last surviving son killed in a railroad accident on January 6, 1853, just two months before Franklin took office. Benjamin, the sole fatality, was killed by a violent injury to his head when their car went off the track and hurtled off a ledge.

Presidency and First Ladyship

Following the shock of Benjamin’s death, Franklin immersed himself in his public and political duties as president of the United States, while Jane went into deep mourning. Seeking comfort in religion, Jane read her Bible and Henry Thornton’s Family Prayers. She also wrote letters, including notes to her dead son. The minister’s daughter urged White House staff to attend religious services, and Pierce’s private secretary later admitted that he went to church out of respect for her.

Jane has been referred to as the Shadow in the White House. Reportedly, she sequestered herself in upstairs rooms and carried out few social or public duties. However, she did venture out for carriage rides and to go sailing on the Potomac River. She enjoyed visits from her relatives and from friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, the celebrated author of The Scarlet Letter, who escorted her on a visit to Mount Vernon.

Jane relied on her friend and widowed aunt, Abigail Kent Means, for companionship. Aunt Means often acted as White House hostess, particularly during the first years of the Pierce administration. Several of Jane’s contemporaries testified that she bravely discharged her duties at dinners and receptions, although her heart was not in performing the public requirements of her position.

Initially she avoided crowded public events, such as evening receptions, but did appear at private dinners, where she could be quite charming. At a March 24, 1854, dinner, Mrs. Pierce impressed Elihu Burritt, a well-known peace proponent of the day, with her questions regarding international affairs. At a dinner the Pierces held the following month, the guest list embodied the political tensions of the time. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who escorted Mrs. Pierce, would soon see his Kansas-Nebraska bill become law, providing for self-government in those two territories and leading to the migration of proslavery forces. Also present was Jane’s cousin Amos Lawrence. He would heavily finance the New England Emigrant Aid Company in its quest to establish free-soil settlers in Kansas. Lawrence, Kansas, an antislavery stronghold, was named in his honor.

Gradually, Jane became more socially active. On New Year’s Day, 1855, after two years of mourning, she publicly received guests alongside her husband. Her grief still evident, Jane never recovered from the deaths of her children, particularly the violent death of Benjamin.

After leaving the White House in 1857, the Pierces took an extended tour of Europe, returning to the United States in 1860. Jane died at the age of fifty-seven on December 2, 1863, in Andover, Massachusetts, and is buried in Concord, New Hampshire.

Legacy

In early 1853, Jane not only lost her last child but also, at least temporarily, lost her faith in her husband. She learned that, despite his claims to the contrary, Franklin had sought the nomination for president. Modern historians have often placed the responsibility for their estrangement, and even his failings as president, on her. Although devastated by the events of her life, Jane Pierce has been depicted as contributing, however innocently, to the start of the Civil War by hurting her husband’s performance in office. She has been portrayed as a vindictive, even insane, woman who blamed Franklin for their son’s death and deliberately shut herself away from her husband.

However, in an 1853 letter to her sister, Jane indicated that Franklin’s presidential duties kept them apart. She regretted that they could not share their grief. Varina Davis, wife of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, confirmed that Mr. Pierce’s “society was the one thing necessary to [Mrs. Pierce], and he was too overworked to give her much of his time.” Evidence indicates that greater mutual support would have benefited both Jane and Franklin as well as his presidency. Very much a lady of her era, Jane was highly regarded by many of her contemporaries.

Bibliography

Bell, Carl Irving. They Knew Franklin Pierce (and Others Thought They Did): A Sampling of Opinions About the Fourteenth U.S. President Drawn from His Contemporaries. Springfield, Vt.: April Hill, 1980.

Cottrell, Debbie Mauldin. “Jane (Means Appleton) Pierce.” In American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy, edited by Lewis L. Gould. New York: Garland, 1996.

Davis, Varina. Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate States of America: A Memoir by His Wife. 2 vols. New York: Belford, 1890.

Means, Anne M. Amherst and Our Family Tree. Boston: Private printing, 1921.

Nichols, Roy Franklin. Franklin Pierce: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills. 1931. Rev. ed. Newton, Conn.: American Political Biography Press, 1998.

Venzke, Jane Walter, and Craig Paul Venzke. “The President’s Wife, Jane Means Appleton Pierce: A Woman of Her Time.” Historical New Hampshire 59, no. 1 (Spring, 2005): 45-63.

Wallner, Peter A. Franklin Pierce: New Hampshire’s Favorite Son. Concord, N.H.: Plaidswede, 2004.

Whitton, Mary Ormsbee. First First Ladies, 1789-1865: A Study of the Wives of the Early Presidents. 1948. Reprint. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1969.