Middletown transcript., 1869-10-16
DEATH OF Ex-PREs1DENr PIERCE.


Ex-President Franklin Pierce died at
his residence, Concord N. II. on Friday
morning, Sth inst. His disease was chron-
ic Inflammation of the stomach, attended
with dropsical effusion of the abdomen
Ex-President Pierce was born on the
23d of November, 1904, at Hillsboro,
N. Ii. and was consequently in the 65th
year of his age at the time of his decease
He was the youngest man to whom the
people of the United States have ever en-
trusted the presidential office; he was be-
tween forty-eight and forty-nine years of
age when he was elected and sworn into
office on the 4th of March, 1858. The
nomination of General Pierce for Presi-
dent of the United States by the Demo-
cratic convention of 1852, was made in
Baltimore, where the sessions of that body
were held. The Virginia delegation, head
ed by Henry A. Wise, proposed the name
of Franklin Pierce on the forty bal
lot, and on the forty-ninth ballot he was
unanimously nominated, and, so far as
electoral votes were concerned, was al
most unanimously elected, receiving, as he
did, the vote of every State but four, or
244 electoral votes against AZ cast for
General Scott, the whig candidate Pre-
vious to his election to the presidency
General Pierce had served several terms
in the Legislature of New Hamspire, two
years of which time he occupied the speak
er's chair of the House. His next step
was to the Congress of the United States
in 1888, with reelection in 1885, and
an elevation to the United States Senate
two years afterwards. He served one
term in the United States Senate and then
voluntarily withdrew from it. In 1916,
after declining the position of Attorney
General of the United States, which had
been rendered him, he entered the militia
ry service as a volunteer in the Mexican
war, acting in the capacity of Brigadier
General, in which he served with credit,
and received the favorable notice of his
commander, General Scott.
The term of General Pierce as Presi-
dent of the United States was illustrated
by the virtue and patriotism of the occu-
pant of the executive chair, and he went
into the retirement of private life after
wards with the purity of his administra-
ton untarnished and his friends as warmly
devoted as upon the day of entering the
White House. With his death has passed
away the only surviving ex-Presideut of
the United States elected by the people,
the two surviving ox-Presidcpts being
those who have succeeded to the chief
magistracy by the deaths of their prede-
cessors.
The decease of Ex-Presidcnt Pierce was
announced to the country by telegraph
AS soon as the sad intelligence reached
Washington, President Grant issued the
following proclamation
The painful duty devolves upon the
President of announcing TO the people of
the United States the death of one of his
honored predecessors, Franklin Pierce,
which occurred at Concord early this morn
ing Eminent in the public councils and
universally beloved in priyate life, his
death will be mourned with sorrow befit-
ting the loss which his country sustains
in his decease,
As a mark Of respect to his memory, it
is ordered that the Executive Mansion and
the several departments at Washington be
draped in mourning, and all business sus-
pended on the day of the funeral 1t is
further ordered that the War and Navy
Departments cause suitable military and ma
val honors to be paid on this occasion to
the memory of the illustrious citizen
who has passed from among US,