and of Wellesley college since 1876. His works in- clude " Temptation " (Boston, 1840) ; " The Eminent Dead " (1846) ; " Bible Scholar's Manual " (New York, 1847); "Notes on the Acts" (1848); "Bible Ques- tions " (3 vols., 1848) ; " Life in the Woods : Advent- ures of Audubon " (1868); a collection of " Hymns and Ritual for the House of Refuge " (1864) ; " Trials of an Inventor : Life and Discoveries of Charles Goodyear" (1866); "Stories from Life which the Chaplain Told " (Boston, 1866) ; its " Sequel " (1867) ; "A Half-Century with Juvenile Offenders" (1869); " Chaplain with the Children " (1870) ; " The Young Shetlander and his Home" (New York, 1870); and "Hymns of the Higher Life " (Boston, 1871). He has prepared, by order of the Massachusetts legis- lature, a new annotated edition of the proceedings of the State convention of 1788, which ratified the national constitution (Boston, 1856).
PEIRCE, Ebenezer Weaver (purse), soldier,
b. in Freetown, Mass., 5 April, 1822. He received
an academical education, and held various local
offices in Freetown and Lakeville, Mass. He was
commissioned major of the Old Colony regiment in
1844, and was made brigadier-general of state mili-
tia in 1855. In 1859 he became lieutenant of the
Ancient and Honorable artillery company. He
commanded as brigadier-general the Massachusetts
troops in Virginia in 1861, for three months, and
was appointed colonel of the 29th Massachusetts
regiment on 31 Dec. of that year. He lost an
arm at White Oak Swamp, Va., 30 June, 1862,
and commanded a brigade in the 9th army corps
from September, 1863, till November, 1864, when
he resigned, after serving in Kentucky, Tennessee,
and Virginia. He was appointed in August, 1866,
collector of internal revenue for the 1st district of
Massachusetts, which appointment was not con-
firmed by the senate. He is the author of " The
Peirce Family of the Old Colony " (Boston, 1870) ;
" Contributions, Biographical, Genealogical, and
Historical" (1874); "Indian History, Biography,
and Genealogy " (1878) ; " Civil, Military, and Pro-
fessional Lists of Plymouth and Rhode Island
Colonies" (1881); and sketches of Bristol and
Plymouth county towns.
PEIRCE, Thomas, poet, b. in Chester county.
Pa., 4 Aug., 1786 ; d. in Cincinnati. Ohio, in 1850.
Losing his father at an early age, he supported
himself in various ways, taught in Philadelphia,
and in 1813 went to Cincinnati, where he engaged
in mercantile pursuits until 1822. He then retired
and studied medicine, but in 1827 resumed his
former life. In 1821 he contributed a series of
satirical odes to the " Western Spy," entitled " Hor-
ace in Cincinnati," which were afterward published
in book-form (Cincinnati, 1822), and in 1825 he
wrote a second series for the " National Republi-
can," entitled " Billy Moody," recounting the educa-
tion and experience of a Yankee who had taught
school in the east, and then wandered to the west.
He wrote numerous prize poems, the chief of which
was " Muse of Hesperia " (1823). His last published
poem, " Knowledge is Power," appeared in 1827.
PEIRCE, or PIERCE, William, ship-master,
b. in England about 1590 ; d. in New Providence,
Bahamas, 15 July, 1641. He was master of "The
Ann " in 1623, afterward of " The Mayflower," and
of "The Lyon," and was shipwrecked in Virginia
in 1632. In 1638 he carried captive Pequot Indi-
ans to the West Indies for sale and brought back
negro slaves from the Tortugas, which was the
first slave traffic in New England. He met a sud-
den and violent death. Peirce was the author of
the first almanac printed in the English-American
colonies (Cambridge, 1639).
PEIRCE, William Shannon, jurist, b. in New
Castle, Del., 3 Sept., 1815 ; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 4
April, 1887. He was descended from Abraham Peirce,
an early Plymouth colonist. He was educated in his
native town and in the high-school at Philadelphia,
and engaged in mercantile pursuits. A few years
later he studied law with Charles Chauncey, was
admitted to the bar in Philadelphia in 184b, and
won reputation in his profession. He M'as an earn-
est advocate of emancipation, and was the counsel
of the slave in nearly every fugitive-slave case that
occurred in Philadelphia under the fugitive-slave
act of 1850. The last important case was the great
Dangerfield case, in which trial he and his col-
leagues argued before the court and jury from the
opening of the court in the morning until sunrise
the next morning. He took an active part in pub-
lic affairs, and in 1856 was a delegate to the con-
vention that nominated John C. Fremont for the
presidency. In 1866 he became a judge of the court
of common pleas in Philadelphia, which office he
held by subsequent elections until his death. In
1886 he had been chosen by both parties for a term
of ten years. He took an active part in founding
the Woman's medical college in Philadelphia.
PEIRSON, Lydia Jane Wheeler, author, b.
in Middletown, Conn., in 1802 ; d. in Adrian, Mich.,
in 1862. She early developed literary tastes, and
wrote verses before her twelfth year. She married
Oliver Peirson in 1844, and subsequently resided
in Tioga county. Pa., till 1853, when she settled in
Adrian, Mich. She contributed many prose and
poetical sketches to magazines and newspapers, and
published two volumes of poems, entitled "Forest
Leaves " (Philadelphia, Pa., 1845) and the " Forest
Minstrel," edited by Benjamin S. Schneck (1847).
PEIXOTO, Ignacio Jose de Alvarenga (pi-
sho'-to), Brazilian" patriot, b. in Rio Janeiro in
1748; d. in Ambaca, Angola. 22 May, 1792. He
was graduated at the University of Coimbra as
bachelor of divinity, and appointed judge of Cin-
tra, and afterward district judge of Rio das
Mortes. On his ari'ival in Rio Janeiro he became
intimate with the viceroy, the Marquis of Lavradio,
to whom he dedicated many of his poetical works.
Peixoto was one of the most devoted followers of
Paula Freire de Andrade {q. v.), and was preparing
for the coming revolution in his province, when
the Viscount of Barbacena, governor of the cap-
taincy of Minas Geraes. warned by informers,
caused him to be arrested. Peixoto was carried in
chains to Rio Janeiro, placed in solitary confine-
ment in the dungeons of the island of Cobras, and
on 18 April, 1792, condemned to death ; but the
penalty was commuted to transportation for life,
and he embarked for the penal settlement of Am-
baca in Angola, where he died a few months later.
PEIXOTTO, Daniel Levy Maduro, physician, b. in Amsterdam. Holland, 18 July, 1800; d. in New York city, 13 May, 1843. He came at an early age with his parents to New York, where his father, Moses L. M. Peixotto, became subsequently minister of a Jewish synagogue. The son was graduated at Columbia in 1816, and took the degree of M. D.
in 1819. After a few years of travel he returned to New York in 1823, where he pursued his profession with success, and gained a place among the foremost practitioners of his day. He was one of the physicians of the city dispensary in 1827. and president of the New York county medical society
m 1830-2, and took an active part in public charitable work as well as in Jewish educational movements. — His son, Benjamin Franklin, lawyer, b. in New York city, 13 Nov., 1834 ; d. there. 18 Sept., 1890, after attending school in New York went to Cleve-
