Henry Lillie Pierce

Henry Lillie Pierce (August 23, 1825 – December 17, 1896) was a United States representative from Massachusetts. He was born in Stoughton. He attended the State normal school at Bridgewater, and was engaged in manufacturing. He served as mayor of Boston and as a Republican in the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses of the United States. He declined to be a candidate for renomination, was elected again as mayor of Boston in 1877, and died in that city on December 17, 1896. His interment was in Dorchester South Burying Ground. Family Henry Lillie Pierce (1825–1896) was the son of Colonel Jesse Pierce (1788–1856) and Elizabeth Vose Lillie Pierce (1786–1871) of Stoughton, Massachusetts. His father had been an educator at Milton Academy and later served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. As a gentleman farmer, he maintained a large farm in Stoughton (formerly a part of Dorchester) until he moved, in 1849, to Washington Street in the Lower Mills of Dorchester with his wife and two sons. Edward Lillie Pierce was then attending Brown University, while Henry Lillie Pierce was at Milton Academy and was to later attend the Bridgewater Normal School. There he pursued classical studies. Employment with Walter Baker In 1849, Henry L. Pierce was hired to work as a clerk at the Baker Chocolate Company. Walter Baker, the owner of the chocolate company and stepbrother of Pierce's mother, hired him at a salary of three dollars per week. However, as their political views clashed and caused animosity (Pierce was a vociferous and deeply opinionated Free-Soiler), Pierce left after only a year of politically tinged employment to take up newspaper work in the Midwest. At the request of Sydney Williams, brother-in-law of Baker and managing director of the chocolate mill, Pierce returned to Boston after a year and was appointed manager of the Walter Baker Counting House at 32 South Market Street in Boston (now a part of the Quincy Market retail area). After the deaths of both Walter Baker (in 1852) and Sydney Williams (in 1854), Pierce was permitted to lease the chocolate business from the trustees of the Baker Estate. The trustees of the Baker Estate, aware that Pierce had only been with the company for five years, leased the business to him for a two-year probationary period, "subject to a life interest payable annually to Mrs. Baker," widow of the owner and step-aunt to Pierce, until her death in 1891.