He was born on December 25, 1757 in Chelmsford, Massachussets, United States, his parents were Benjamin and Elizabeth (Merrill) Pierce. He was descended from Thomas Pierce, an English emigrant of 1633-34 who settled in Charlestown, Massachussets.
His father died when the boy was six, leaving him to the care of an uncle.
His education consisted of a few weeks' schooling and much farm labor.
When the news of the battle of Lexington came, Pierce immediately joined the Massachusetts militia as a private. Remaining in the army until February 1784, he participated in the maneuvers around Boston and in the Saratoga campaign, and was stationed at Valley Forge and in the Hudson Valley; during these years he rose to the rank of lieutenant in command of a company, receiving one promotion for bravery in the battle of Saratoga.
When he was mustered out he became an agent for Samson Stoddard of Chelmsford, Massachussets, who had large tracts in New Hampshire and Vermont. He explored much of this land and in the course of his wanderings picked out a frontier farm in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, where he settled in 1786. In 1786 Pierce was appointed to organize the militia of Hillsborough County as brigade-major and served until 1807, when he resigned with the rank of brigadier-general.
He began his political career in 1789, when he was elected to the lower house of the legislature; he was chosen annually for thirteen years and, in 1791, served as a member of the state constitutional convention. In 1803 he was elected a member of the governor's council, and in 1809 he was appointed sheriff of his county.
When New Hampshire returned to the Federalist fold, one of the first things the victorious Federalists did was to remove a number of Republican office holders, among them Benjamin Pierce, in 1813, ostensibly because he refused to recognize the new courts established by the Federalists to eliminate Republican judges. The next year his friends elected him to the governor's council as a vindication and when the Republicans regained power he was reappointed sheriff of Hillsborough County, serving from 1818 to 1827. Party lines were indistinct in New Hampshire as elsewhere in the twenties; new groups were forming.
Isaac Hill was marshaling a farmers' party in the interior of the state, and, recognizing Pierce's vote-getting strength as a Revolutionary veteran and an agrarian leader, brought him forward as a candidate for the governorship in 1827, 1828, and 1829. He was elected in 1827 and 1829.
His last public service was as a Democratic elector in 1832. During these years of political activity he had been fairly prosperous as a farmer and had become a local magnate in the town of Hillsborough, where he kept a tavern in his large dwelling on the turnpike.
Benjamin Pierce was a distinguished veteran of the Revolutionary War, served with distinction at the Battle of Bunker Hill, at Saratoga. Following the war he built the Franklin Pierce Homestead, and was assigned the task of forming the Hillsborough County militia. He also was the Governor of New Hampshire, made the recommendations for the improvement of the militia and local education.
During his early years he had become an intensely active supporter of Thomas Jefferson and as a plain farmer warred against the aristocratic Federalists. He strongly supported the War of 1812. In his late time he was an ardent Jacksonian.
He was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati.
He was a rugged, unlettered pioneer, dominating and patriarchal, who bore the hardships of frontier life easily.
On May 24, 1787, he married Elizabeth Andrews, who died the following year; and on February 1, 1790, he married Anna Kendrick (1768 - 1838), who became the mother of Franklin Pierce.
