XIX.
JANE APPLETON PIERCE.
There are two classes of ladies of whom the biographer is compelled to write, and both are alike interesting. One includes those whose lives have been passed in the sunshine of prosperity and allurements of fashionable society, who have been widely known, and who have mingled with the leading characters of this country. The lives of such women include innumerable incidents of public and private interest, and are, in fact, necessary to a perfect history of their time. They are a part of the great world about them, and it as easy to gather the facts of their careers, as of the great men with whom they have been associated nearly or remotely.
The other class is composed of those of whom the world knows little; whose perfect seclusion even in a public position has given but little evidence of their abilities, and the world, with its eager curiosity, has been but imperfectly apprised of their merits. Such natures, howsoever cultivated and developed, receive but a small portion of that admiration awarded to the first-mentioned class. Their lives are known only to the inmates of their homes, and though cherished there as a beautiful harmony, and their memory as a holy, sealed book, the inquirer after facts and incidents is dismayed by the small amount of material to be gathered from such an existence. Such an one was Jane Means Appleton Pierce, who was born at Hampton, New Hampshire, March 12th, 1806. She was but one year of age when her father, Rev. Jesse Appleton, D. D., assumed the presidency of Bowdoin College. Reared in an atmosphere of cultivation and refined Christian influences, the delicate child grew in years, unfolding rare mental qualifications, but fragile and drooping in health, developing year by year the most exquisite nervous organization. Naturally inclined to pensive melancholy—the result, partly, of her physical condition, she was from her childhood the victim of intense sensibilities and suffering, and was during her life the unfortunate possessor of an organism whose every vibration was wonderfully acute and sensitive. The world of suffering locked up in the hearts of such persons it is impossible to estimate; but happier by far is the day of their deaths than the years of their lives. Blended with a naturally strong mind, Miss Appleton possessed a quick appreciation of the beautiful, which in the later years of her life was of priceless value to her own heart. Thrown by her marriage into the political arena, and much in the society of public men of note, she yet soared to a higher theme, and, when not incompatible with politeness, discovered to her company the natural elevation of her nature. Politics, a theme most generally uninteresting to woman, was peculiarly so to her, and it was in her presence impossible to sustain a conversation on the subject. In 1834, at the age of twenty-eight, she was married to Hon. Franklin Pierce, then of Hillsborough, and a member of the lower house of Congress. The match was a pleasing union of kindred natures, and was a source of deep and lasting happiness. The wealth and tenderness of Mr. Pierce’s nature, appreciated to its fullest extent by her, had its reflex in the urbanity and courteousness with which his conduct was ever characterized toward others. He is spoken of in a recent publication as the most popular man, personally, in the District of Columbia, who ever occupied the position he filled.
To a person organized as was Mrs. Pierce, public observation was extremely painful, and she shrank from it always, preferring the quiet of her New England home to the glare and glitter of fashionable life in Washington. A friend has said of her: “How well she filled her station as wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend, those only can tell who knew her in these private relations. In this quiet sphere she found her joy, and here her gentle but powerful influence was deeply and constantly felt, through wise counsels and delicate suggestions, the purest, finest tastes and a devoted life.”
“She was not only ministered to, but ever ministering,” and there is so much of the spiritual in her life that from Bulwer we gather a refrain most applicable to her. “The cast of her beauty was so dream-like and yet so ranging; her temper was so little mingled with the common characteristics of women; it had so little of caprice, so little of vanity, so utter an absence of all jealousy and all anger; it was so made up of tenderness and devotion, and yet so imaginative and fairy-like in its fondness, that it was difficult to bear only the sentiments of earth for one who had so little of earth’s clay.”
In 1838, Mr. Pierce removed from Hillsborough to Concord, where he afterward continued to reside. Four years later, he resigned his seat in the Senate to practise law, and thereby make provisions for the future. A bereavement, the second of its kind, occurred two years later in the loss of his second son, Frank Robert.
When President Polk tendered Mr. Pierce the position of Attorney-General, it was the illness of his wife which drew from him his reply declining it. He says:
“Although the early years of my manhood were devoted to public life, it was never really suited to my taste. I longed, as I am sure you must often have done, for the quiet and independence that belong only to the private citizen, and now, at forty, I feel that desire stronger than ever.
“Coming so unexpectedly as this offer does, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange the business of an extensive practice, between this and the first of November, in a manner at all satisfactory to myself, or to those who have committed their interests to my care, and who rely on my services. Besides, you know that Mrs. Pierce’s health, while at Washington, was very delicate. It is, I fear, even more so now; and the responsibilities which the proposed change would necessarily impose upon her, ought, probably, in themselves to constitute an insurmountable objection to leaving our quiet home for a public station at Washington.”
Mrs. Pierce was not called upon to leave her pleasant home, and for another year she passed her time in tranquil happiness, little dreaming that her country would so soon demand the sacrifice of him who thought not of public honors when she was concerned.
The declaration of war with Mexico found him ready and willing to serve the best interests of his State and Government, by enlisting as a private soldier in a company raised in Concord. He was subsequently appointed Colonel, and finally Brigadier-General, which position he filled with honor and distinction. He sailed from Newport, the 27th of May, 1847, and remained in Mexico nine months, during which time Mrs. Pierce and her son continued at their home in Concord. Her health during his absence was not more frail than usual, but anxiety and suspense, watching yet fearing to hear of the absent one, kept her from regaining or improving her impaired constitution, and of renewing the slender chord by which her life was held.
The mother of three children, none survived her, and the death of the last, under circumstances so peculiar, shattered the small remnant of remaining health, and left her mother’s heart forever desolate. On the 5th of January, previous to the inauguration of Mr. Pierce as President, an accident occurred on the Boston & Maine Railroad, which resulted in a great calamity; among the passengers were the President-elect, his wife, and only son, a bright boy of thirteen years. The family were on their return to Concord from Boston, and it was between Andover and Lawrence that the axle of one of the passenger-cars broke, and the cars were precipitated down a steep embankment. Mr. Pierce, sitting beside his wife, felt the unsteady movements of the train and instantly divined the cause. Across the seat from them sat their son, who but a moment ago was amusing them with his conversation. A crash, a bounding motion as the cars were thrown over and over down the hill, and men began to recover from their fright and assist in aiding those injured in the fearful accident. Mr. Pierce, though much bruised, succeeded in extricating his wife from the ruins, and bearing her to a place of safety, returned to hunt his boy.
He was soon found; his young head crushed and confined under a beam, his little body still in death. Even now it is a subject too painful to dwell upon. What must have been the feelings of those grief-stricken parents, in a moment bereft of their all!
The remains were conveyed to Andover until arrangements could be made for their removal to Concord.
Under such a bereavement, in feeble health and exhausted vitality, came Mrs. Pierce to the White House.
Through the season, before her great trial was sent upon her, she had been nerving herself for the undesired duties and responsibilities of her public station at Washington; and with the burden of that crushing sorrow she went forward, with the noblest self-sacrifice, to do what was to be done, as well as to bear what was to be borne. That she performed her task nobly and sustained the dignity of her husband, the following letter will prove.
From Mr. J. H. Hoover, who, during President Pierce’s administration, was Marshal of the District of Columbia, the following facts were received:
“My Dear Madam: I learn that Prof. Aiken’s notice of Mrs. Pierce, that appeared in the Observer, has been sent to you, and I presume it does not contain information on all the points you desired to reach particularly. Hence this note. The idea has somehow gone out that Mrs. Pierce did not participate in the receptions and entertainments at the White House. Mr. Gobright, in his book recently published, ‘Recollections of Men and Things at Washington,’ makes the statement that Mrs. Pierce did not, until the close of the administration of President Pierce, appear at the receptions. This is an inexcusable blunder, for Mr. Gobright was here on the spot, and should have known better. The fact is, Mrs. Pierce seldom omitted attendance upon the public receptions of the President. She was punctually present also at her own Friday receptions, although at times suffering greatly. Often in the evening of the President’s levee, she would allow herself to be conducted into the Blue Room, and there remain all the evening receiving, with that quiet ease and dignity that characterized her always: a duty which few ladies, indeed, would have had the courage to perform in her then delicate state of health. She presided, too, with the President at the State dinners, as well as those of a more social character, and certainly never before or since, was more hospitality dispensed by any occupant of the White House. The most agreeable memories of Mrs. Pierce at the Presidential Mansion, and such only, are retained and cherished in this city. The days of that period when a quiet and dignified but hearty hospitality signalized the Executive Mansion, and the protection of the Constitution, which diffused a sense of all-pervading security, were indeed the bright days of the Republic. This is the view of our own people, and who are better judges than they who have seen so many Administrations here?
“Every one knew and respected the enfeebled condition of Mrs. Pierce’s health, and felt that the sad event which happened only a short time before she came to Washington, on that fatal railroad train, might have shattered a much hardier constitution than was hers, and at least have unfitted her, physically as well as mentally, to discharge the duties of the Lady of the White House. Yet she suppressed her inward grief before the public eye, and overcame her debility in deference to what she believed to be her duty toward her distinguished husband’s exalted position. Those who knew Mrs. Pierce well at this time eulogized her heroism.
“No lady of the White House left more warm friends in Washington among our best people, and she had not a single enemy. What I have written above, you are at liberty, madam, to use (if you deem it worthy) in your forthcoming work. It has the merit at least of being the testimony of ‘one who knows.’ I give it in order that the grievously wrong statements in Mr. Gobright’s work, concerning Mrs. Pierce, may be corrected, and the error exposed before it passes into history.”
Another friend says of her: “It is no disparagement to others who have occupied her station at the White House, to claim for her an unsurpassed dignity and grace, delicacy and purity, in all that pertains to public life. There was a home, a Christian home, quietly and constantly maintained, and very many hearts rejoiced in its blessings.”
Mrs. Pierce was always extremely delicate, and was reduced to a mere shadow after the loss of her son. I have heard a gentleman say, who was a member of Mr. Pierce’s family at the time, that “it was with the utmost difficulty she could endure the fatigue of standing during a reception, or sitting the tedious hours of a dinner party,” and her courage must have been all-powerful to have sustained her under the most uncongenial of all things to an invalid—the presence of comparative, and in many cases entire, strangers. Her pious scruples regarding the keeping of the Sabbath were a marked attribute of her life. Each Sunday morning of her four years’ stay in the White House, she would request, in her gentle, conciliatory way, all the attachés of the Mansion to go to church, and on their return, would make pleasant inquiries of what they had heard, etc. “Many a time,” remarked Mr. Webster, the Private Secretary, “have I gone from respect to her, when, if left to my own choice, I should have remained in the house.” In her unobtrusive way, ever thoughtful of the happiness of those about her, she diverted their minds to the elevated and spiritual, and sought, in her own life, to be a guide for the young with whom she was thrown. How rare are these exquisite organizations, and how little do we know of them, even though they have lived in our midst, and formed a part of us! A while they linger here to learn the way to brighter spheres, and when they vanish, naught is left but a memory fragrant with the rich perfume of a beautiful, unselfish life.
In the autumn of 1857, Mrs. Pierce, accompanied by her husband, left the United States, on the steamer “Powhatan,” for the island of Madeira, and passed six months in that delightful place. The following eighteen months were spent in Portugal, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and England. Of her appreciation of this lengthy sojourn in the most historic and renowned countries of the old world, we have no evidence save in the supposition, how one of her fine nervous nature must have enjoyed the bygone splendors of Spain, the ever-ranging panorama of luxurious Paris, and the snow-capped mountains of Italy and Switzerland, of the Alps, of Mont Blanc, and the tamer scenery of German towns and cities! Would that it were possible to present even one of her letters to the American public who have ever evinced their regard and admiration for Mrs. Pierce, through the sympathy extended to her now desolate husband. But that repugnance to publicity, so characteristic in life, is respected now by the few of her family who have survived her, and the painful recollections of what she suffered are as yet too fresh in the minds of her friends to desire them to be recalled.
From ex-President Pierce, who very kindly replied to my many inquiries, the following letter was received just previous to his death, which occurred on the 8th of October, 1869:
“If your attention has been called to the obituary notice of Mrs. Pierce, published in the Boston Recorder, of January 8th, 1864, and reproduced in the New York Observer within two or three weeks of that date, you may have been impressed with the sentences, ‘She shrank with extreme sensitiveness from public observation.’ I cannot help being influenced by that very controlling trait of her character, and this, I am sure, is true of all her relatives. Hence, and indeed, in consulting our own tastes, we were thoroughly satisfied with the sketch from the hand of one who knew her intimately, from his early manhood, and loved her well.
“Mrs. Pierce’s life, as far as she could make it so, was one of retirement. She very rarely participated in gay amusements, and never enjoyed what is sometimes called fashionable society. Her natural endowments were of a high order, recognized by all persons with whom she was, to any considerable extent, associated. She inherited a judgment singularly clear and correct, and a taste almost unerring. She was carefully and thoroughly educated, and moved all her life, prior to her marriage, very quietly in a circle of relatives and intimate friends of rare culture and refinement.”
On the 2d of December, 1863, at Andover, Massachusetts, she died. Many of her kindred and all her children had gone before her, and she was ready to join them. But she was patient, and had “learned to wait, with growing confidence and love, for the revealing of her Heavenly Father’s will.” Among her last words was the familiar line,
repeated with all the emphasis of which she was then capable. Now she has reached that refuge.
On the 5th of December, she was buried by the side of her children in the cemetery at Concord, New Hampshire.
Those who knew her will be glad, glad just in proportion to the intimacy of their acquaintance with her, to be reminded of the qualities in which they found so much delight. To others who have only known of her, and that mainly in connection with her sorrows, it will be just to present very briefly other aspects of her life. Her fine natural endowments were developed by a careful and generous culture, not merely under the forms of education, but through the agency of all the examples and influences of her early home and the circle of related families. No one knew better how to make tributary all the experience of life. All her instincts and choices drew her toward, and attracted toward her, whatever was refining and elevating. Her tastes were of exceeding delicacy and purity. Her eye appreciated, in a remarkable degree, whatever was beautiful in nature and art. During the last years of her invalid life, she found not merely physical relief, but the deepest gratification in foreign travel, and in residence near our own New England mountains and sea-shore. This contact with nature’s freshness and variety and beauty, often renewed her strength when the ministries of human affection and skill were alike powerless.
The following touching tribute was written by a friend whose affection for Mrs. Pierce knows no change. He sent it carefully wrapped in many covers to protect it. Oft used and much worn as it is, he prizes the paper, from the associations clustered with its appearance, and the circumstances under which it was written. Its beauty is its truth and simplicity.
“The distinctions of earth fade away in the presence of death; but the memory of departed excellence comes forth fresh and perennial from the very portals of the grave.
“To-day this paper records the lamented decease of one who has filled the highest station in the land with dignity and propriety unsurpassed, and who has adorned private life with every estimable quality which could become a true Christian gentlewoman.
“The many who have esteemed and respected her throughout life will deeply deplore her loss, and will sincerely sympathize with him who has been thus called to submit to one of the severest of human afflictions.
“His beloved companion has passed through great sufferings, bearing always with him the memory of a great grief; and she has doubtless gone to that rest which we know ‘remaineth for the people of God.’”