Henry Augustus Peirce was an American merchant and diplomat.
Background
Henry Augustus Peirce was born on December 15, 1808 in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was son of Joseph Hardy and Frances Temple (Cordis) Peirce was born in Dorchester, Massachussets, the eleventh child in a family of thirteen. A descendant of Thomas Peirce who settled at Charlestown in 1634, he numbered among his ancestors Gen. Joseph Warren.
Education
After a childhood marked by delicate health, Henry Augustus Peirce left school at the age of fourteen to assist in the office of his father, who was clerk of the Boston municipal court. There he learned the rudiments of business, but a desire for travel, nourished by wide reading, grew so strong that in 1824 he shipped before the mast for a voyage to the North-West Coast on the brig Griffon, of which his brother was captain. They reached Honolulu after five months, and there Henry was promoted to ship's clerk, in charge of stores and trade goods. For more than three years they cruised between Alaska and Mexico, trading for hides and furs with Indians and Spaniards.
Career
Returning to Honolulu in 1828, Henry Augustus Peirce became a clerk in the employ of James Hunnewell, a prosperous merchant, whose confidence he so completely gained that two years later the youth of twenty-two was taken into partnership and left with a capital of $20, 000 to manage the local business of bartering New-England goods for sandalwood and furs when the senior member went to Boston. In 1833 Hunnewell withdrew from the firm. During the next two years Peirce opened a triangular trade with China and Siberia, and in 1836 took as partner Charles Brewer, whom he left in charge at Honolulu when he set sail for Boston in February of that year. Early in the autumn of 1837 he was again in the Pacific with an armed brig which he finally sold at Valparaiso, whence he crossed the continent to Buenos Aires, traveling mostly on horseback.
In April, 1839 Henry Augustus Peirce sailed for Hawaii as part-owner and master of a schooner and spent the next two years in trading along the Mexican and Californian coasts. In 1842 he sold a vessel and cargo at Mazatlan in Mexico, went overland to Vera Cruz, and sailed thence to the United States. Retiring from the firm in 1843 with $100, 000, Peirce remained in Boston and engaged extensively in the shipping business. At the height of the gold rush in 1849 he took a vessel to San Francisco, where the crew deserted to a man, but he managed to return by way of Hawaii and Canton, arriving in April 1850. For a number of years he was a prominent merchant and shipowner, as well as Hawaiian consul for New England. On the outbreak of the Civil War he contributed $50, 000 to equip Massachusetts volunteers and was active in recruiting, but during the war he lost most of his large merchant fleet through the depredations of Confederate privateers. Relatively poor, he invested in 1866 in a Mississippi cotton plantation, which failed badly as a result of floods and bad weather.
By selling his Beacon Street mansion, Henry Augustus Peirce paid all his debts and lived in retirement until appointed in 1869 as minister to the Hawaiian Kingdom. He was responsible for calling in American marines when riots occurred on the election of King Kalakaua in February 1874, and accompanied the latter during the following winter to the United States on a visit which facilitated the conclusion of the reciprocity treaty of 1876. On resigning from his post in October 1877, he was given the order of Grand Commander of Kamehameha in recognition of his services to Hawaii. Illness brought him back to Honolulu in a few months, and on March 1, 1878, he was appointed Hawaiian minister for foreign affairs, a portfolio he held until July, when a quarrel between king and legislature forced his resignation.
After a brief visit to Boston, Hnery Augustus Peirce settled in San Francisco, where he died. Enterprising and honorable in business, he lost a considerable fortune through speculation and war. As merchant and diplomat, he believed in American expansion not only to California but also to Hawaii and did all in his power to aid it. He died on July 29, 1885.
Achievements
Connections
On July 3, 1838 Henry Augustus Peice married Susan, daughter of Joseph Thompson.