Capt. Michael Pierce

d. 1676

Died 1676

Michael Pierce lived at Hingham or Weymouth, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, before 1647. That year he bought land at Conihasset, in Scituate, in Plymouth Colony, and settled there. He rose in the town's militia to lieutenant and then captain.

His first wife was Persis Eames, a daughter of Anthony Eames. She died on 31 December 1662, by one account. She was probably the mother of his son Benjamin. He married again. His will calls his second wife Ann.

In 1675 New England went to war with the Wampanoag leader Metacom, whom the English called King Philip, and his allies. In December 1675 Pierce was in the Narragansett fight. On 26 March 1676 he led about fifty Plymouth men and twenty Christian Indians after the warriors of Canonchet, the Narragansett sachem, near Pawtucket. His company was surrounded. He and nearly all his men were killed.

Among the dead were John Sprague of Duxbury and Joshua, a son of John Fobes of Bridgewater.

Before he went out he made his will. Deane's History of Scituate gives it in his own words: "Being, by the appointment of God, going out to war against the Indians, I do ordain this my last will and Testament: and first I commit my ways to the Eternal God, &c." He left "to wife Ann ... the house which I last built", and "To son Benjamin my present dwelling house." To his son John went "all my lands in Hingham", and to his son Ephraim five pounds. His daughters Elizabeth, Deborah, Ann, Abiah, Ruth and Persis were left fifty pounds each.

Benjamin married Martha Adams in 1678 and took over his father's house. Deane follows the family down through three more Benjamins. Benjamin's son Benjamin married Mary Cowen. Their daughter Mary married Ebenezer Keith of Bridgewater in 1741.

A boulder with a bronze plaque now stands in Pierce Park, at Central Falls, Rhode Island. It reads "PIERCE'S FIGHT. NEAR THIS SPOT CAPTAIN MICHAEL PIERCE AND HIS COMPANY OF PLYMOUTH COLONISTS ... MARCH 26, 1676".

Sources

Samuel Deane, History of Scituate, Massachusetts (1831), archive.org historyofscituat00deane, p. 325, leaf 333

Samuel Deane, History of Scituate, Massachusetts (1831), archive.org historyofscituat00deane, p. 326, leaf 334

Find a Grave memorial 52532104

Photograph, about 1894, in John Daggett, A Sketch of the History of Attleborough (1894), via Wikimedia Commons.

Noah Newman to the Rev. John Cotton, "Rehoboth 27 of the first [month] 76." American Antiquarian Society, Curwen Family Papers, box 1, folder 6 (catalogue 271403); image on Find a Grave memorial 52532104.

Samuel Deane, History of Scituate, Massachusetts (1831), archive.org historyofscituat00deane, pp. 325-326; Find a Grave 52532104; Mitchell, History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater (1840/1897), archive.org historyofearlyset00mitcch, p. 162; Noah Newman to the Rev. John Cotton, 27 March 1676, American Antiquarian Society, Curwen Family Papers, box 1, folder 6 (catalogue 271403); Daggett, A Sketch of the History of Attleborough (1894); Deane p. 325; Deane pp. 325-326; Find a Grave, asserted; p. 326; Find a Grave 52532104, photographs; Mitchell p. 162

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Cite: Heirology, "Capt. Michael Pierce (d. 1676)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/capt-michael-pierce-1676-4a3b15.