Background
He was born on January 11, 1839 in East Otto, Cattaraugus County, New York, United States, the son of Sylvester and Mary Olive (Treat) Pierce, both natives of New York.
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
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He was born on January 11, 1839 in East Otto, Cattaraugus County, New York, United States, the son of Sylvester and Mary Olive (Treat) Pierce, both natives of New York.
He received a common-school education. Later he studied in the old University of Chicago for two years.
When the family removed to Indiana in 1854, he became a clerk for his father in a general store ten miles south of Valparaiso. After marriage he removed to Valparaiso, where he began to read law. After University of Chicago he was admitted to practice in Indiana.
When the Civil War broke out he enlisted in the 9th Indiana Volunteers and was elected second-lieutenant. At the end of the three months' term of enlistment, Lincoln appointed him captain and assistant quartermaster. He served under General Grant in the West until the capture of Vicksburg. In November 1863 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and served at Matagorda Island, Texas. The following year he was appointed inspector of the quartermaster's department with the rank of colonel. After serving in South Carolina he was ordered to the department of the Gulf, where he remained till the close of the war.
After retiring from the army he again took up his residence in Valparaiso and devoted himself to law and journalism. In 1869 he was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives. At the close of his term he became secretary to Oliver P. Morton. He kept up his interest in journalism and was a correspondent on several important dailies. For two years he served as assistant financial clerk in the United States Senate but resigned in 1871.
Later he returned to Valparaiso and in 1872 obtained a place on the editorial staff of the Chicago Inter Ocean through the good offices of E. W. Halford, then editor of this paper.
He was the author of a number of books. In 1872 he published The Dickens Dictionary, which went through several editions and is now issued uniformly with the library edition of Dickens by Houghton Mifflin Company. In 1876 he published Zachariah, the Congressman and in 1883 A Dangerous Woman. Both novels were on Washington political life, and were highly praised by the critics of the time. One of his plays, One Hundred Wives (1880), was a still greater success and was played for two seasons with the Gosche-Hopper Company.
After serving as managing editor of the Inter Ocean for a number of years, he became a member of the editorial staff of the Chicago Daily News. He took an active part in the Republican campaigns of 1880 and 1884 and was especially prominent in the movement to nominate President Arthur at the Republican convention of 1884.
When the need arose for a new governor of the territory of Dakota, he was named as the most available man for the position. He accepted the position in 1884 and moved his family to Bismarck, then a frontier city just coming into notice as the political center of the new territory. In November 1886 he resigned his position.
When the territory was divided in 1889 he was chosen as one of the senators from North Dakota. The short term fell to him, and he stood for reelection in 1891. Owing to a misunderstanding over senatorial patronage he found himself opposed by a group of state politicians, chief among whom was Alexander McKenzie. They were able to control the elections for members of the House and the Senate, and he lost the election to his opponent, Henry Clay Hansbrough. His defeat for reelection closed his political career.
In 1891 he moved his family to Minneapolis and devoted himself, thereafter, to the field of journalism. He was first connected with the Daily Pioneer Press as special writer in the Dakota department, but later he became half owner and publisher, with W. J. Murphy, of the Minneapolis Tribune.
Failure of health, in the fall of 1891, compelled him to give up his editorial work and seek a warmer climate, first in Florida and then in Colorado. On January 6, 1893, he was appointed by President Harrison as minister to Portugal but was compelled to resign on April 26, on account of continued lack of health. On his return to Minneapolis he found himself unable to continue his editorial work.
He died at the Lexington Hotel, Chicago.
Serving as the governor of Dakota Territory, Gilbert Ashville Pierce organized the governor's guard and this group of young business men of Bismarck afterward became Company A of the territorial militia. His fine presence and magnetic personality as well as his administrative ability made him the natural leader of his party at the time. He also was the author of famous works "The Dickens Dictionary" and "One Hundred Wives".
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
Pierce vetoed a bill to grant equal suffrage to women. He was a proponent of statehood and quickly signed a bill into law to authorize a state constitutional convention for southern Dakota Territory.
He had considerable literary ability.
In 1858 he married Anne Maria Bartholomew.
