Jane Means Pierce was the wife of Franklin Pierce and the first lady of the United States from 1853 to 1857. She married Franklin Pierce, then a congressman, in 1834 despite her family's misgivings. She refused to live in Washington, D.C., and in 1842, she convinced her husband to retire from politics. He sought the Democratic presidential nomination without her knowledge in 1852 and was elected president later that year. Their only surviving son, Benjamin, was killed in a train accident prior to Franklin's inauguration, sending Jane into a deep depression that would afflict her for the rest of her life. Pierce was reclusive in her role as first lady, spending the first two years of her husband's presidency in a period of mourning for her son. Her duties at this time were often fulfilled by Abby Kent-Means. After the conclusion of Franklin's presidency they traveled abroad for two years before settling in Massachusetts. She died of tuberculosis in 1863.
Pierce in 1857
Jane Pierce with her last surviving son, Benjamin Pierce. The child died in 1853 in a train crash, two months before his father was sworn into office as president.
2010 commemorative First Spouse coin featuring Jane Pierce
Franklin Pierce was an American politician who served as the 14th president of the United States from 1853 to 1857. A northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the nation's unity, he alienated anti-slavery groups by signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. Conflict between North and South continued after Pierce's presidency, and, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the Southern states seceded, resulting in the American Civil War.
Portrait by Mathew Brady, c. 1855–1865
The Franklin Pierce Homestead in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, where Pierce grew up, is now a National Historic Landmark. He was born in a nearby log cabin as the homestead was being completed.
Novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, a lifelong friend of Pierce, wrote the biography The Life of Franklin Pierce in support of Pierce's 1852 presidential campaign.
Pious and reserved, Jane Pierce was her husband's opposite in many ways.