Benjamin Peirce (librarian)

Peirce, born in Salem, 30 September 1778, was the son of Jerahmeel and Sarah (Ropes) Peirce. After graduating from Harvard College at the head of the class of 1801, he returned to Salem and entered the India trade with his father. He was a representative to the Massachusetts General Court from Salem for several years and a Massachusetts State Senator from Essex County in 1811.

But neither a mercantile nor a political life fully satisfied him and he was glad to accept in 1826 the position of Librarian at Harvard. He at once set about the preparation of a catalogue of the Library which was published in 1830-31 in four volumes : the first two containing an alphabetical catalogue by authors, the third a systematic index, and the fourth a catalogue of maps.

It was, perhaps, partly the labor involved in making this catalogue that caused his health to break down. The last volume had hardly come from the press, when Peirce died, 26 July 1831, aged 53. He had left in manuscript a great part of a History of Harvard University, from its foundation, in the year 1636, to the period of the American Revolution. This was edited by his friend John Pickering, and published in 1833 (Cambridge; Brown, Shattuck and Company. 8°. pp. XX., 316, 160). Quincy, in his History of Harvard, describes the book as "of great merit and usefulness, possessing the traits of that soundness of judgment and accuracy of investigation so eminently his characteristics." He also published an Oration delivered at Salem, 4th of July, 1812.

He married, 11 December 1803, Lydia R. Nichols. His son Benjamin Peirce was a distinguished mathematician, and for many years Perkins professor of astronomy and mathematics. One of his three other children Charles Henry Peirce was a physician in Salem and Cambridge.

 This article incorporates text from The librarians of Harvard College 1667-1877, a publication from now in the public domain in the United States.