Franklin Pierce | Black Hills & Badlands - South Dakota

Franklin Pierce

  • Franklin Pierce
Sculptor: 
James Van Nuys

Franklin Pierce became friends with author Nathanial Hawthorne while they were students at Bowdoin College in Maine. Hawthorne would go on to write the official Franklin Pierce campaign biography, and in 1853, Pierce appointed him as United States consul in Liverpool, England. Pierce's son died in a train accident while the family was on their way to Washington to his inauguration in February 1853. Pierce was the first president to put a Christmas tree in the White House. He did so in an attempt to cheer up his wife who was still mourning over the death of their son. One issue that caused a lot of criticism against Pierce was the Ostend Manifesto. This was a document published in the New York Herald which stated that if Spain was not willing to sell Cuba to the U.S., the United States would consider taking aggressive action to get it. http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/franklinpierce

​Presidential Years: 1853-1857

Directions: 
Corner of 9th St. & Main St.