Martin L. Peirce

1889 - Sep 04 - Martin L. Peirce leaves tomorrow for Maxinkuckee to superintend the building of his cottage, which, when completed, will be one of the neatest and most complete at the resort. -- Journal and Courier Lafayette, Indiana

Martin Luther Peirce Birth 34 or 26 June 1806 Portsmouth, Rockingham County, New Hampshire Death 29 December 1889 Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana Burial Spring Vale Cemetery Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana son of Nathaniel Sargent Peirce and Sarah Hutchings

In 1836 Peirce arrived in Lafayette.

During 1838-1839, Peirce served in the unglamorous but necessary elected office of Tippecanoe County coroner

During 1840-1843, Peirce served as the county sheriff, winning election as a Whig. But to quote one biography: "He had a lifelong predilection for humanitarian causes. As a vigorous opponent of slavery, he abetted the Underground Railroad." President of First National Bank of Lafayette.

married 2nd 1845 Tippecanoe County, Indiana Emily Lovejoy Birth 1826 Death 21 Jul 1849 Burial Greenbush Cemetery Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana daughter of Jonathan Lovejoy and Jemima Kingsbury,

married 3rd 7 Jan 1850 Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana Emma L Comstock Birth 4 Mar 1821 Hartford, Connecticut Death 8 Jun 1911 Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana Burial Spring Vale Cemetery Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana daughter of Christopher Raymond Comstock and Harriet Fuller Adopted children:

Oliver Webster Peirce Sr Birth 8 Jan 1829 Parke County, Indiana Death 19 May 1921 Burial Spring Vale Cemetery Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana

Richard G. Peirce.

Children of Martin Luther and Emma L. Comstock:

Fannie ELizabeth (Lizzie) Peirce married Frederic W. (Fred) Ward

Charles Howard Peirce 1857=1932

Lafayette, Indiana Directories, 1885-1891 
Name	Martin L Peirce
Residence Date	1885, 1886
Residence Place	LaFayette, Indiana, USA
Business Name	First National Bank
Business Address	116 North
Occupation	Prest 
 

MARTIN LUTHER PEIRCE.

Words of praise or periods of encomium could not clearly convey the personal characteristics of the noble gentleman of whomthe biographer now essays to write in this connection, for only those who had the good fortune to know him personally could see the true beauty of his character and individual traits, which were the resultant, very largely, of a longlife of devotion to duty, a life filled with good deeds to others and led along worthy planes, for during his long business career, he having been for some time the oldest business man in Tippecanoe county, the late Martin L. Peirce endeavored to be an advocate of the Golden Rule.

He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, June 26, 1806, in which city he received his education in the common schools. He was descended from the family of Peirces that located at Kittery, Maine, nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, where his father, Dr. Nathaniel S. Peirce, was born during the last days of the American Revolution.

When the latter was twenty-three years old he edited and published the New Hampshire Gazette at Portsmouth for several years. The paper was then fifty years old and in 1889 it was the oldest newspaper in the United States.

In March, 1821, Martin L. Peirce, as a clerk, entered the counting room of C. & C. W. Peirce, commission merchants of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he remained until 1828. Then he came to the middle West to grow up with the new country where he deemed greater opportunities existed for one of his temperament, and, having a rare executive ability and keen foresight, he soon got a foothold and became prosperous.

From 1836 he was an active business manin the city of Lafayette. Taking an interest in public affairs, he was elected sherifif of Tippecanoe county in 1840 and again in 1842 on the Whig ticket. Heafterwards refused two nominations, one for county treasurer and one for county clerk. For the seven years following he was the directing member of Hanna, Barbee & Company, grain and commission dealers.

January7, 1850, Mr. Peirce was married to Emma L. Comstock, of Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Deacon Comstock of that city, and to union four children were born, two of whom died in youth. Charles and Lizzie P., who married Fred W. Ward, survived. Mr. and Mrs. Peirce also reared two other children, Oliver W. and Richard G. Peirce.

In 1854 Martin L. Peirce went into the banking business as a member of the firm of Spears, Peirce & Company, under the name of the Commercial Bank of Lafayette, and in 1863 the name of this thriving institution was changed to the First National Bank of Lafayette, of which Mr. Peirce was elected president, which position he held until his death, managing the affairs of the bank in such an able manner as to give it wide prestige and establishing on as solid a basis as any bank in the state. This bank was reorganized June 1, 1882. This was among the first banks of its nature organized under the national banking law in the United States, its original number being twenty- six, all of which charters were issued the same day.

Mr. Peirce was also vice-president of the Lafayette Savings Bank, which he was instrumental in organizing. He was treasurer of Purdue University from the date of its organization until his death.

He was also a trustee of Franklin College and of the Chicago University, having always taken a very active interest in educational affairs, and no small part of the success of the above named institutions was due to his wise counsel in the management of their affairs.

He was especially interested in the success of Purdue University from the first—in fact, he wasits first treasurer. He is said to have been the first to suggest to John Purdue the founding of this university. The two men were closely associated and one day when they were riding together they passed a cemetery where a thirty-six-thousand-dollar monument stood. They commented on the useless waste of so large an amount of money, and Mr. Peirce suggested to Mr. Purdue that he leave a more useful monument to his memory by leaving a large sum to a college to bear his name. In this suggestion others urged Mr. Purdue in this matter, and the great Purdue University of today is the result.

Mr. Peirce, in his fraternal relations, was a Mason, having identified himself with this ancient and honored order in 1840. In 1867 he visited the Paris Exposition as representative of the Scottish-rite Masons of the United States, and he attended the grand banquet of the Grand Orient of Paris, where eleven hundred delegates, representing every civilized country in the world, assembled. This was a distinction of which any one might well be proud. While abroad he visited the principal countries of Europe and the British Isles.

He had the distinction of being the first member initiated into Tippecanoe Lodge, No. 55, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in Lafayette. Since 1843 to the time of his death, December 28, 1889.

He was an active and prominent member of the First Baptist church. At various times he made liberal donations to the church and to Purdue University, the fine greenhouse on the grounds of the latter being the result of his generosity. He was originally a Free Soiler, but ever since the organization of the Republican party he was a loyal supporter of the same.

At the national convention of bankers at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1887, he was a delegate, being the oldest of between three and four hundred bankers in attendance. He was held in highest esteem by the members of that association, by members of the lodges with which he was identified, in fact byall classes, for he had sterling traits of character which commended him to all, enjoying the unqualified confidence of his fellow citizens.

His long and eminently useful life was replete with success because he worked for it in an honorable manner, his life work having been nobly planned and singularly free from blot or stain, or even the suspicion of evil, his entire career being marked by generous acts. The suffering, the worthy poor, the deserving young man, the church, the cause of education, never appealed to him in vain.

He gave liberally, ungrudgingly and unostentatiously, being prompted by the broad charity which he felt rather than by any desire to makea display, his only hope of reward being the consciousness of doing good. As a financier and banker-captain of industry, his sound judgment, unusual executive ability and fidelity to duty placed the institutions with which he was connected in the front rank of their kind. He was truly a consecrated Christian man. and it was in his homelife that his character shone with peculiar luster—the tenderness in his nature created idols out of its loves and his wife, children and grandchildren were its loves. Truly he was a good manlike that mentioned in Holy Writ "whose life was as a shining light." -- Past and present of Tippecanoe County, Indiana Winthrop Ellsworth Stone, Ph. D., LL. D. Vol 2