Samuel Chase Pierce was born on October 30, 1839, in Fowlerville, New York, to Isaac C. Pierce and Lucinda Chase. His father was a farmer. The family moved to Rochester, New York, around 1849, and Pierce grew up and attended school in Rochester, New York, before enrolling at the University of Rochester. He graduated in 1860 and established the Rochester Military Training School with his cousin Francis Pierce later that year.

 

He supported the Republican Party, and he cast his vote for Abraham Lincoln in the election of 1860. He enlisted in the Union army on August 20, 1861, and mustered in as a 1^st lieutenant in Company H of the 3^rd New York Cavalry a week later. He was promoted to captain on December 27, 1862. Confederate forces captured him at Reams’ Station, Virginia, on June 29, 1864, and he spent the next few months imprisoned near Columbia, South Carolina. He escaped in November 1864, but Confederates eventually recaptured him. He was paroled in March 1865 and spent the next three months assisting freedpeople in Nansemond County, Virginia. He mustered out on July 12, 1865.

 

Pierce returned to his parents’ household in Rochester after the war. He married Ellen Farrar on May 2, 1866, and their daughter Ellen was born on January 30, 1867. His wife, however, died on March 14, 1867, and his daughter grew up with the Farrar family. He continued to support the Republican Party after the war, serving as chairman of the Monroe County Republican Committee in 1867 and sergeant-at-arms of the New York legislature in 1869 and 1870.

 

He worked as a leather manufacturer in the late 1860s, and from 1870 until 1872, he reportedly “dealt in naval supplies in San Domingo.” He returned to Rochester in 1873 and became a principal of a local school. Pierce married Clara Mary Teftt on October 31, 1877. They apparently had no children, and Clara died sometime before 1900. He applied for a federal pension in April 1904 and eventually secured one. He played an active role in local commemorative efforts, marching in parades and leading the local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic. He retired sometime in the 1920s, and he died in Rochester on May 13, 1931.

 

Image: Samuel Chase Pierce (New York Cartes-de-visite, 1860-1865, available from Ancestry.com)

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