Lake County IN Archives Biographies.....Pierce, Marion F. 1841 - 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 7, 2006, 10:42 pm

Author: T. H. Ball (1904)

MARION F. PIERCE.

    Marion F. Pierce, merchant and well-known business man of Merrillville, Ross
township, is one of the oldest native sons of Lake county still engaged in the
active pursuits of life. Three generations of the Pierce family have been
identified with the industrial and commercial affairs of the county, covering a
period of seventy years, and extending from the time when the alternate
stretches of woodland and prairie in Lake county offered habitation to few white
men, until now there is not a square foot anywhere not in private possession or
devoted to public use. Myiel Pierce, the grandfather; Marion Pierce, the father;
and Floyd M. Pierce, the son, are the three men who have wrought out their
success and advanced the welfare of the county during the years of their lives
spent here, and to the second of the three is due the distinction of sixty-three
years of residence in the township where his business interests are still located.

    Mr. M. F. Pierce was born in Ross township, Lake county, August 1, 1841. His
father, Myiel Pierce, was born about 1800 in Erie county, New York, and as a
pioneer among the pioneers arrived in Lake county, Indiana, June 25, 1835. He
was a farmer and hotel-keeper and in September, 1842, erected the old and
well-known Merrillville Hotel, which after sixty-two years of use still stands
as a monument to its founder and builder. He sold this hotel property after
running it two years, and then bought the farm on which he died in 1847. He was
county assessor for a time, and was well known throughout the surrounding
country. His wife was Marcia Ann Crawford, a native of Erie county, New York,
and who died in January, 1897, in her seventy-eighth year. There were six
children in their family: Corydon, Angelina, Sidney, Marion F., Myiel, and
Myron, who died about 1848.

    Marion F. Pierce was about six years old when his father died, and he never
enjoyed many days of pleasant boyish recreation, nor yet had he his full
complement of schooling. His mother was compelled to go into the hayfield and do
a man's labor in order to maintain her family and home, and Marion was never
behindhand in assisting her, and in each succeeding year did a larger share of
the farm duties. He thus remained on the home farm until he was twenty-one, and
on August 9, 1862, enlisted in Company A, Ninety-ninth Indiana Infantry, serving
in the ranks for nearly three years, until his discharge after the close of the
war, on June 16, 1865. He was in thirty battles altogether, taking part at
Vicksburg, Jackson. Resaca, Lookout Mountain, Atlanta, Jonesboro, Fort
McAllister, was all through the campaign to the sea, and thence to Washington,
where he participated in the grand review. He returned to Ross township and
resumed farm work, remaining at home till his marriage, in 1867. In 1873 he
engaged in the mercantile business at Merrillville, and has been in that for
over twenty years, now ranking as the premier merchant and business man of the
town.

    Mr. Pierce is one of the influential Democrats of the county, and has taken
an active part in local affairs. He was trustee of Ross township for nine years,
served as postmaster of Merrillville four years, and was in the internal revenue
service five years under Cleveland's administration. He affiliates with the John
Wheeler Post, G. A. R., at Crown Point, and in the Masonic Lodge No. 551, at
Merrillville, has filled all the chairs but one, senior deacon.

    He was married, October 27, 1867, to Miss Maggie B. Randolph, daughter of
Cyrus and Allie (Meade) Randolph. They are the parents of three children: Floyd
M., Cora B. and Ralph M.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
Genealogy and Biography
OF
LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA,
WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 
1834—1904

A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and
the Founding of a Nation.

REV. T. H. BALL
OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO   NEW YORK
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1904


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/lake/bios/pierce417gbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/

File size: 4.6 Kb