. t comity of the same name, and state of New Han, re * Nember. 1501. At that time, the county of thu stv mis, more extensi e territory than su'sequently, when ecuatres were ade up from it, at 1 might reel in a sci her memable, the a.ails of the country, anong w BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF FRANKLIN PIERCE. DURING the period of the war beween the United States and Great Britain, which was declared in 1812 and terminated in 1815, there were in existence, engaged in various occupations and far distant from each other, ten Americans, who were afterward elevated to the presidency of the republic. It is curious to take a retrospective view of the positions in life then occupied by these individuals, of whom, perhaps, only the first two could, at that time, have entertained any reasonable hopes or expectations of reaching the high station to which they were afterward called. James Monroe was then at the head of the department of state at Washington; John Quincy Adams was minister-plenipotentiary to the imperial court of Russia at St. Petersburgh; Jackson a planter of Tennessee, but soon called into the military service of the United States; Van Buren, a resident of Columbia county, New York, had just entered public life as a state senator; Harrison, governor of the territory of Indiana, and a distinguished commander in the army of the northwest: Tyler, a lawyer of Virginia, and member of the legislature of that state; Polk engaged in his studies in Tennessee, and afterward at the university of North Carolina; Taylor, a young officer in the army, actively engaged in the public service in the western wilderness; Fillmore, a youth, at school in western New York; and lastly, Pierce, still younger in years, commencing an academical education in New Hampshire. FRANKLIN PIERCE, the fourteenth president of the United States—on whose accession to that high office, only three of his predecessors survived (viz., Van Buren, Tyler, and Fillmore)—was born at Hillsborough, in the county of the same name, and state of New Hampshire, on the 23d of November, 1804. At that time, the county of Hillsborough was a much more extensive territory than subsequently, when parts of other counties were made up from it, and might reckon among its sons many men memorable in the annals of the country, among whom may be named |
