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Author: Pierce, William Leigh

Biography:

PIERCE, William Leigh (1790-1814: ancestry.com)

Born in Savannah GA, Pierce was the son and grandson of Georgia soldiers and statesmen, but he was a posthumous child. His father, Major William Leigh Pierce (1753-89), had been one of Georgia's representatives to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. His mother Charlotte (Fenwick) Pierce remarried; his stepfather Ebenezer Jackson was also a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Pierce graduated from Princeton (BA 1808, MA 1811) and studied law in Litchfield CT. He seems to have qualified but not to have been called to the bar before his death. He was also on track to be a versatile author. In 1811 he undertook a journey by barge on the Mississippi and published in 1812 a first-hand account of earthquakes experienced on that trip. In 1812 he delivered a Fourth of July oration on behalf of the Savannah Volunteer Guards. His patriotic volume of poetry was published in New York in 1813, the preface dated from Canandaigua NY, where he was probably working in the law office of John Greig, one of his dedicatees. He died of typhus in Canandaigua, and is buried there. John R. Vile's book about his father provides a great deal of valuable context. (ancestry.com 24 June 2020; John R. Vile, The Wisest Council in the World: Restoring the Character Sketches by William Pierce . . . [2015])

 

 

Books written (1):

New York: David Longworth, 1813