John Davis Pierce

{{short description|American minister, educator and politician (1797–1882)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=October 2013}}{{Use American English|date=October 2013}} {{Infobox person | name = John Davis Pierce | image = John Davis Pierce.jpg | birth_date = {{birth date|1797|02|18}} | birth_place = Chesterfield, New Hampshire, US | death_date = {{death date and age|1882|04|05|1797|02|18}} | death_place = Medford, Massachusetts, US | alma_mater = Brown University, <br/>Princeton Theological Seminary | known_for = Michigan public school system | occupation = {{hlist|Minister|state school superintendent|legislator}} }} '''John Davis Pierce''' (February 18, 1797 – April 5, 1882) was an American minister, educator and politician. He was Michigan's first superintendent of public schools, a position new to the United States, where he established Michigan's public school system. His work has been compared to that of Horace Mann's.

Before his public service career, he attended Brown University and Princeton Theological Seminary, and became an ordained minister of the Congregational Church. When he moved to Michigan as a missionary, he became involved in Michigan politics and ultimately designed the state's public school system as part of their organization for statehood. After his superintendency, he was elected to the state legislature and served on Michigan's 1850 constitutional convention before retiring to his farm outside Ypsilanti for the last thirty years of his life.

== Early life and career == {{quote box|quote=We have started in the race of improvement with the fixed determination of extending the blessings of education to every child in the state. Within the past three years about 2,000 districts have been organized.|source= —Pierce writing to Horace Mann, 1839<ref name=Brown/>|width=22em }}

John Davis Pierce was born February 18, 1797, in Chesterfield, New Hampshire.<ref name=EB/> His father died when he was young, and his lack of money limited his education;<ref name=EB/> By age 20, Pierce committed himself to 'self-education'.<ref name=EB/> He later attended Brown University, graduating in 1822,<ref name=EB/> and taught briefly before attending Princeton Theological Seminary.<ref name=EB/> In 1825, he was ordained a minister of the Congregational church, and was hired as pastor in Sangerfield, New York, soon moving on to pastor in Goshen, Connecticut.<ref name=EB/> But, as he was a Freemason, Pierce lost both those posts during the Anti-Masonic Party of the late 1820s.<ref name=EB/>

Pierce married Millicent Estabrook on February 1, 1825.{{sfn|Hoyt|Ford|1905|p=66}}

He migrated to Michigan as a missionary, settling in Marshall, a frontier town, in 1831.<ref name=EB/> He planned a public education system for Michigan as the territory readied itself to enter statehood, and served as Michigan's first superintendent of public instruction from 1836 to 1841,<ref name=Brown/> It was the first position of its kind in the United States.<ref name=Brown/> His objectives were many and far-reaching: he coordinated the state's elementary schools, created state school districts with individual libraries, set professional qualifications for teachers, sold public land for public education, and planned the creation of the University of Michigan.<ref name=EB/> He founded the Great Lakes region's first professional education journal, ''The Journal of Education'', and served as its editor from 1838 to 1840.<ref name=EB/> A Brown University library exhibit calls Pierce "the Horace Mann of Michigan".<ref name=Brown/> Pierce's vision and work combined common schools with a public university, which the Brown exhibit describes as an achievement that "surpass[es] Mann's in breadth and comprehensiveness".<ref name=Brown/>

Pierce returned to his pulpit in 1841.<ref name=EB/> In 1847, he was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives,<ref>''Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Michigan'', Michigan State Printers: 1848, pg. 3-5</ref> and was most notably involved with legislation opening Michigan's first normal school.<ref name=EB/> He served on Michigan's 1850 constitutional convention before leaving state government.<ref name=EB/> Other than his brief service as school superintendent for Washtenaw County from 1867 to 1868, Pierce lived his 30-year retirement on his farm outside Ypsilanti.<ref name=EB/> In 1880, he and his wife moved to live under the care of their daughter in Medford, Massachusetts,{{sfn|Hoyt|Ford|1905|p=146}} where he died on April 5, 1882.<ref name=EB/>

==Legacy==

John D. Pierce Middle School in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://gpschools.schoolwires.net/domain/774|title = Who is John D. Pierce / Overview}}</ref> John D. Pierce Middle School in Redford, Michigan,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://k12.niche.com/john-d-pierce-middle-school-redford-mi/|title = Explore John D. Pierce Middle School}}</ref> and John D. Pierce Middle School in Waterford, Michigan,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://schools.publicschoolsreport.com/Michigan/Waterford/JohnDPierceMiddleSchool.html |title=John D. Pierce Middle School - Waterford, Michigan |access-date=March 12, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160313044902/http://schools.publicschoolsreport.com/Michigan/Waterford/JohnDPierceMiddleSchool.html |archive-date=March 13, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> are all named for him.

== References == <references>

<ref name=Brown>{{cite web |url=https://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/exhibits/education/baptist.html |access-date=October 22, 2013 |title=Baptist Brown and Nineteenth Century Education |date=November 20, 2001 |work=Exhibits at the Brown University Library |publisher=Brown University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023062607/http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/exhibits/education/baptist.html |archive-date=October 23, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

<ref name=EB>{{cite encyclopedia |year=2013 |title=John Davis Pierce |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica Online |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/459820/John-Davis-Pierce |access-date=October 22, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023060341/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/459820/John-Davis-Pierce |archive-date=October 23, 2013 |url-status=live }}</ref>

</references>

=== Sources === {{Refbegin}}

* {{cite book|last1=Hoyt|first1=Charles Oliver|last2=Ford|first2=Richard Clyde|title=John D. Pierce, founder of the Michigan school system: a study of education in the Northwest|url=https://archive.org/details/johndpiercefound00hoyt|year=1905|publisher=The Scharf tag, label & box co.}}

== External links ==

* {{Commons category-inline}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pierce, John Davis}} Category:1797 births Category:1882 deaths Category:Delegates to the 1850 Michigan Constitutional Convention Category:People from Chesterfield, New Hampshire Category:Brown University alumni Category:Princeton Theological Seminary alumni Category:Politicians from Ypsilanti, Michigan Category:People from Marshall, Michigan Category:Members of the Michigan House of Representatives Category:Michigan superintendents of public instruction Category:19th-century American Congregationalist ministers Category:American Freemasons Category:University of Michigan people Category:Educators from Michigan Category:19th-century American educators Category:19th-century members of the Michigan Legislature