“If your attention has been called to the obituary notice of Mrs. Pierce, published in the Boston Recorder, of January 8th, 1864, and reproduced in the New York Observer within two or three weeks of that date, you may have been impressed with the sentences, ‘She shrank with extreme sensitiveness from public observation.’ I cannot help being influenced by that very controlling trait of her character, and this, I am sure, is true of all her relatives. Hence, and indeed, in consulting our own tastes, we were thoroughly satisfied with the sketch from the hand of one who knew her intimately, from his early manhood, and loved her well.
“Mrs. Pierce’s life, as far as she could make it so, was one of retirement. She very rarely participated in gay amusements, and never enjoyed what is sometimes called fashionable society. Her natural endowments were of a high order, recognized by all persons with whom she was, to any considerable extent, associated. She inherited a judgment singularly clear and correct, and a taste almost unerring. She was carefully and thoroughly educated, and moved all her life, prior to her marriage, very quietly in a circle of relatives and intimate friends of rare culture and refinement.”
On the 2d of December, 1863, at Andover, Massachusetts, she died. Many of her kindred and all her children had gone before her, and she was ready to join them. But she was patient, and had “learned to wait, with growing confidence and love, for the revealing of her Heavenly Father’s will.” Among her last words was the familiar line,
“Other refuge have I none,”
repeated with all the emphasis of which she was then capable. Now she has reached that refuge.
On the 5th of December, she was buried by the side of her children in the cemetery at Concord, New Hampshire.
Those who knew her will be glad, glad just in proportion to the intimacy of their acquaintance with her, to be reminded of the qualities in which they found so much delight. To others who have only known of her, and that mainly in connection with her sorrows, it will be just to present very briefly other aspects of her life. Her fine natural endowments were developed by a careful and generous culture, not merely under the forms of education, but through the agency of all the examples and influences of her early home and the circle of related families. No one knew better how to make tributary all the experience of life. All her instincts and choices drew her toward, and attracted toward her, whatever was refining and elevating. Her tastes were of exceeding delicacy and purity. Her eye appreciated, in a remarkable degree, whatever was beautiful in nature and art. During the last years of her invalid life, she found not merely physical relief, but the deepest gratification in foreign travel, and in residence near our own New England mountains and sea-shore. This contact with nature’s freshness and variety and beauty, often renewed her strength when the ministries of human affection and skill were alike powerless.
The following touching tribute was written by a friend whose affection for Mrs. Pierce knows no change. He sent it carefully wrapped in many covers to protect it. Oft used and much worn as it is, he prizes the paper, from the associations clustered with its appearance, and the circumstances under which it was written. Its beauty is its truth and simplicity.
“The distinctions of earth fade away in the presence of death; but the memory of departed excellence comes forth fresh and perennial from the very portals of the grave.