Name John Pierce | ||
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Born February 18, 1797 ( 1797-02-18 ) Chesterfield, New Hampshire, United States Residence Near Ypsilanti, Michigan, United States Alma mater Brown University,
Princeton Theological Seminary Occupation Minister, state school superintendent, legislator Known for Michigan public school system Died April 5, 1882, Medford, Massachusetts, United States | ||
John Davis Pierce (February 18, 1797 – April 5, 1882) was a Congregationalist minister, public schools advocate, and Michigan legislator. 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.
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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
John Davis Pierce was born February 18, 1797 in Chesterfield, New Hampshire. His father died when he was young and the subsequent lack of money limited Pierce's education during his youth. He decided to self-educate at the age of 20. He later attended Brown University and graduated in 1822. Pierce taught briefly before attending Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1825, he became an ordained minister of the Congregational Church and then a pastor in Sangerfield, New York and Goshen, Connecticut. He lost those jobs during the late 1820s Anti-Masonic Movement, as a Freemason himself.
Pierce married Millicent Estabrook on February 1, 1825.
He went to Michigan as a missionary and moved to Marshall, a frontier town, in 1831. He planned a public education system for Michigan as they planned to enter statehood, and was subsequently appointed Michigan's first superintendent of public instruction from 1836 to 1841, where 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 University of Michigan. It was the first position of its kind in the United States. He founded the Great Lakes region's first professional education journal, The Journal of Education, and served as its editor from 1838 to 1840. A Brown University library exhibit calls Pierce "the Horace Mann of Michigan". Pierce's 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".
Pierce returned to his pulpit in 1841. He was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1847 and was most notably involved with legislation opening Michigan's first normal school. Pierce served on Michigan's 1850 constitutional convention before leaving state government. Other than his brief service as Washtenaw County's school superintendent from 1867 to 1868, he lived his 30-year retirement on his farm outside Ypsilanti. In 1880, Pierce and his wife moved to live under the care of their daughter in Medford, Massachusetts, where he died on April 5, 1882.
Legacy
John D. Pierce Middle School in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, John D. Pierce Middle School in Redford, Michigan, and John D. Pierce Middle School in Waterford, Michigan are all named for him.