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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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PIERCE, JAMES A. (1804-1867)

PIERCE, JAMES A., printer, publisher, and "public journalist"; b. Halifax, N.S., c1804; m. 1827, Elizabeth Phelan, also a native of Nova Scotia; d. Chatham, 29 Oct 1867.

No birth or baptism record has been discovered for James A. Pierce, but he is thought to have been a son of James Pierce Sr and his wife Ann, who had a number of children born in Halifax between 1796 and 1807. He probably would not have remembered his father, who was dead by November 1808, at which time his widowed mother, Mrs Ann Pierce, married Thomas Cooke, a Halifax widower. His mother continued to reside in Halifax until her death in 1858, at age eighty-three. He also had two or more sisters who lived in Halifax, as well as an unmarried sister, Julia Pierce, who made her home with him and his family.

It is tradition that Pierce served as a bandsman in an English regiment, and that after it was disbanded at Quebec he returned to Halifax and learned the printing trade. His apprenticeship was at the Nova Scotia Royal Gazette, which was published by John Howe Jr. A fellow apprentice was Joseph Howe, the younger half-brother of the publisher, who was destined to become one of the principal newspapermen and public figures in 19th-century Nova Scotia. The foreman under whom the apprentices served their time was James H. Storey, who had been a printer with Joseph Howe's father, John Howe Sr, on the Halifax Journal.

Pierce moved to Chatham in 1825 with the intention of starting a new weekly newspaper in October, but he had to postpone the start-up after his shipment of type was vandalized. "On the landing of our types," he stated, "the principal box was purloined and secreted for several weeks, and another of the same font was broken open and some squares of letters thrown over the wharf." New type eventually arrived, and the first issue of his paper, The Mercury, appeared on 21 February 1826. It was a four-page weekly, which carried news and literary material reprinted from established publications. It also ran advertisements and paid notices but had little other local content.

The Mercury was superseded on 28 July 1829 by the Gleaner and Northumberland Schediasma. This was a similar paper, eight pages in length, but over the years it evolved editorially and became a newspaper of record for the northeastern section of the province. An interesting event in its early history occurred in 1837, when Pierce used the columns of the paper to accuse Lemuel A. Wilmot, a member of the provincial Assembly, of uttering an untruth. For this he was arrested and locked up in the York County Jail for twenty-two days. He was released when the house was prorogued without being formally charged, which made the Assembly's action appear entirely arbitrary. While such an infringement on the freedom of the press was being deplored on the editorial pages of newspapers inside and outside the province, he returned to a hero's welcome in Chatham. However, he politely declined a banquet proposed in his honor, insisting that he had merely done his duty as a "public journalist."

In conjunction with The Gleaner, Pierce conducted a commercial printing establishment and stationery store, but the business was always on the brink of failure. Renaming the paper The Gleaner and Northumberland, Kent, and Gloucester Schediasma in 1835, and The Gleaner and the Northumberland, Kent, Gloucester, and Restigouche Schediasma in 1838, and attempting to market it throughout the counties mentioned, did not end his financial woes. He found it both difficult and distasteful to collect from the many who did not pay for their subscriptions, and for this reason he announced in August 1842 that he would be ceasing publication of the paper. When it seemed that he was serious, a committee of concerned citizens was formed which so deluged him with expressions of appreciation and regret, and promises of assistance in securing and collecting subscriptions, that he was dissuaded. He also accepted a proposal that a portion of the paper be devoted to agriculture so as to have greater appeal for the many farmers among his readers. Thus the 'new' Gleaner, the first number of which was issued on 27 September 1842, was called The Gleaner and Northumberland, Kent, Gloucester, and Restigouche Agricultural and Commercial Journal.

In spite of any help which may have been given to Pierce by his supporters, The Gleaner continued to be financially unstable. He faced a challenge of another kind in the 1840s in the political and social unrest which erupted on the Miramichi. He tried to avoid becoming embroiled in events by declining to align himself with any of the warring factions and by being extremely selective about the letters and news items which he accepted for publication. He stated that the minutes of public meetings alone could be assured of getting space. He probably regretted making even that promise, when at a public meeting held in August 1843, which was said to have been attended by more than 300 people, it was resolved that he was unworthy of public confidence and that a second newspaper was needed on the Miramichi. The underlying grievance was that he has been "of Williston's party" in the recent election. In his defense he stated that he had voted for one candidate from each side of the river (Williston and Rankin). He also charged that the chairman and secretary of the meeting at which he had been reprimanded were not persons of standing in the community, and that the names of the mover and seconder of the resolution had not been recorded.

Pierce was also bruised by a situation which arose in 1850, when during his absence from the printing shop, John Hea convinced his assistant printer to publish, as a paid advertisement, a letter in which Hea accused John T. Williston of having failed to pay him for transportation and other services supplied in connection with Williston's political activities. Williston was outraged at this attack on his reputation, but instead of taking action against Hea, he sued Pierce for £1,000 for defaming him by printing the letter. In what must rank as one of the most bizarre libel trials ever conducted in New Brunswick, Pierce was found guilty and was fined £10, even though nobody would seem to have doubted that Hea's statements were factual. (A quip of the time was that the trial showed the true cash value of Williston's good name.)

In 1856 Pierce took his son James J. Pierce into partnership and announced that he planned to retire from business at the end of the year. In 1857 The Gleaner establishment was advertised for sale, but it was not sold, and Pierce did not retire. He stayed on as senior editor of the paper until 1865, when James A. Pierce & Son was dissolved. In what proved to be his most opinionated period he engaged in unrelenting verbal warfare with Davis C. Howe, the editor of a rival newspaper which came into being in Chatham in 1856; he let it be known that he sympathized with the South during the American Civil War; and he strenuously opposed Confederation. Although he conceived of himself as liberal and reform-minded he stated in 1865 that he did not accept the democratic principle that all are equal. Some people, he thought, could be made to be superior, and he favored a class structure in society, such as he would have observed in England during a trip which he made there in 1845.

The kind of newspaper which Pierce strove to produce was "a well regulated, carefully supervised, high toned, and independent journal." While the content of his ideas would not have been shared by some of his more enlightened contemporaries, the fact that "he pursued an honorable and independent course, truckling to no man or party" was universally acknowledged and respected.

Pierce was one of the first volunteer firemen with the Chatham Fire Company, which was organized shortly before his arrival on the Miramichi. Together with Robert Morrow and others he was a trustee of the first Methodist church in Chatham. He took a lifelong interest in the literary and artistic development of the community. In 1834 he was the librarian of the Northumberland Union Library, which was conducted out of The Gleaner office during fixed hours. This library resulted from a merger of the Miramichi Subscription Library, in which William Carman played a leading part, and a Chatham public library which was started in 1833. In 1842 Pierce was president of the short-lived Chatham Literary Society. He was an incorporator and one of the first executive officers of the Miramichi Mechanics' Institute and, while he failed to attend meetings regularly, he occupied the president's chair for at least three terms. In 1849-50 he was president of the Chatham Amateur Band; in 1859-60 of the Northumberland Agricultural Society; and in 1861-62 of the Chatham YMCA. He retired from public life in 1865 due to illness. He and his wife, Elizabeth Phelan, had a daughter who lived to maturity, and three sons, one of whom was James J. Pierce.

Sources

[m] Acadian Recorder 21 Jul 1827 [d] Morning News 30 Oct 1867 / Fraser (C); Ganong Collection (scrapbook #5, re. Methodism); Gleaner 9 Dec 1834, 28 Feb 1837, 14 Mar 1837, 25 Jan 1842, 29 Aug 1842, 27 Sep 1842, 18 Aug 1843, 20 Jun 1846, 13 Apr 1847, 29 Apr 1850, 23 Sep 1850, 30 Sep 1850, 12 May 1851, 30 Aug 1856, 1 Nov 1856, 4 Apr 1857, 23 Jan 1858, 13 Feb 1858, 25 Sep 1858, 24 Dec 1859, 14 Apr 1860, 9 Feb 1861, 25 Jun 1864, 15 Apr 1865, 30 Sep 1865, 18 Nov 1865, 17 Feb 1866, 2 Nov 1867; Leader 19 Aug 1965 (article by Louise Manny); Halifax Marriages (Cooke/Pierce); Harper; NB Newspapers; PANS (microfilm of records of St Paul's Anglican Church, Halifax); Standard 4 Mar 1868


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