Death of Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce died on 8 October 1869 in Concord, aged 64. The 14th President of the United States, Pierce was a New Hampshire Democrat who won the 1852 election as a compromise candidate, at 48 the youngest elected president to that time. Shortly before his inauguration his young son was killed in a railway accident, which left him and his wife in deep grief. His administration made the Gadsden Purchase of land from Mexico, but his support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened new territories to the possibility of slavery, led to violence in Kansas and divided the country. His party refused to renominate him in 1856, and he is often counted among the weaker presidents.

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