and respect. She has done some very praiseworthy legislative work, spending many weeks in looking after bills in the interest of women.
PIERCE, Mrs. Elizabeth Cumings, poet and author, born in Fulton, N. Y., in 1850. She comes of good American ancestry. Her grandfather, Levi Cumings, served with some distinction in the War of 1812, and three of her great-grandfathers served their country in the Revolution. Roger Williams, the founder of Providence, was an ancestor upon her father's side, and her mother, whose maiden name was Harriet Hartwell Perkins, had in her veins the blood of Samuel Gorton, even more than the ardent Roger the champion of religious liberty; the inventor, Joseph Jenckes; John Crandall, who was sent to jail for holding Baptist meetings, and Edward Wanton, who, from being an assistant in Quaker persecutions, turned Quaker preacher himself, and, in his descendants, furnished Newport colony with four governors, one of whom was the great-grandfather of Elizabeth.
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ELIZABETH CUMINGS PIERCE.
As a child, Mrs. Pierce loved books and, as she phrases it, "all out-doors." She says she was remarkable for nothing, save fleetness of foot. There were plenty of books in her home, but she counted that day lost which was spent entirely indoors. The grass, the flowers, the birds, the insects, even the snow and the rain were her intimates. At about the age of eight she began her literary work by writing a dialogue, which she taught her little schoolmates during recess. The teacher, overhearing the performance, asked Elizabeth where she found it "I made it up," was the reply. Whereupon the teacher accused the small author of falsifying and proceeded to exorcise the evil demon by means of a rose branch well furnished with thorns. The dots of blood upon her frock, where the thorns had impressed their exhortation to truthfulness, made no impression upon Elizabeth's spirit. After due apology to the parents, the teacher made the dialogue the chief feature of the "last day of school." Curiously enough, in spite of that early suggestion of future possibilities, the bugbear of Elizabeth's boarding-school days was composition-writing. In 1869 she became the wife of Rev. George Ross Pierce, a man of much culture and refinement. About 1876, over her maiden name, she began to write stories for children, which appeared in "Wide-Awake," the "Independent" and "St. Nicholas." Later, she began to write essays, under the pseudonym "Rev. Uriah Xerxes Buttles, D.D.," for the "Christian Union," and in those have appeared many shrewd and, at times, somewhat biting comments upon matters and things. A curious incident of that part of her work has been that what was pure fiction has been taken by people, of whose existence she never heard, for pure fact, or, more correctly, a description of performances in which they have taken part Mrs. Pierce's stories, verses and essays have appeared not only in the publications noted, but also in "Harper's Weekly," "Lippincott's Magazine" and on one occasion the "Scientific Monthly." Her only long stories are "The Tribulations of Ebenezer Meeker," published in " Belford's Magazine" for May, 1889, and "The Story of an Artist," in "Music." In 1891 she published a juvenile serial, "Matilda Archambeau Van Dorn," in " Wide Awake," and she had a serial in "Little Men and Women" for 1892.
PIERCE, Mrs. Jane Means Appleton, wife of Franklin Pierce, the fourteenth President of the United States, born in Hampton, N. H , 12th March, 1806, and died in Andover, Mass., 2nd December, 1863. Her father, Rev. Jesse Appleton, D. D., became the president of Bowdcin College one year after her birth. Miss Appleton received a liberal education and was reared in an atmosphere of refined christian influences. She was a bright child, but her health was never strong, and she grew more and more delicate and nervous as she advanced to womanhood. In 1834 she became the wife of Hon. Franklin Pierce, then of Hillsborough and a member of the House of Representatives in Washington. Three sons were born to them, two of whom died in early youth. The youngest, Benjamin, was killed 6th January, 1853, in a railroad accident near Lawrence, Mass. His death, which happened in the presence of his parents, shocked Mrs. Pierce so that she never fully recovered her health. In 1838 they removed to Concord, N. H., where both are buried. Mrs. Pierce's illness kept Mr. Pierce from accepting various honors that were tendered to him by President Polk. When she went to the White House as mistress, she was in an exhausted condition, but she bore up well under the onerous duties of her position. In 1857 she went with her husband to the island of Madeira, where they remained for six months. In 1857 and 1858 they traveled in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy. Switzerland, England and Germany. Of her reign in the White House it may be said that her administration was characterized by refinement and exaltation. Politics she never liked. All her instincts were in the line of the good and the lovely in life. She was respected and admired by her cotemporaries.
PITBLADO, Mrs. Euphemia Wilson, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her father was a lawyer and was of the same family as Prof. John Wilson, better known as "Christopher North" Her mother was a near relative of Dr. Dick, the christian philosopher and astronomer. She received her education in Edinburgh and in Winnington Hall, near the old city of Chester, England. In that college all the students w ere obliged to Study
