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Continental Congresses

William Leigh Pierce, Jr. (c. 1740–1789)

William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, served in the Continental Congress from 1786 to 1787.

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His exact date of birth is unknown. Although his official congressional biography lists him as “William Pierce” [1], other sources refer to him as William Leigh Pierce. He was born in either Virginia or Georgia. The names of his parents are unknown, but contemporary newspapers call him “William Leigh Pierce, Jr.,” so that his father was probably William Leigh Pierce, Sr.

In late 1783 Pierce married, at John’s Island, South Carolina, Charlotte Fenwick, the daughter of Edward Fenwicke, a South Carolina planter. [2] The couple had two sons, of whom only one survived to adulthood.

When the American Revolution broke out in 1775, Pierce volunteered for duty, and was assigned, from Virginia, as a captain in the 18th Regiment of Continental Artillery on 30 November 1776, and then was named as the aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene until the end of the conflict five years later. He saw action with Greene at Eutaw Springs, 8 September 1781, where he was given the thanks of the Continental Congress for his service by being presented with a ceremonial sword. [3]

It is assumed that Pierce settled in Georgia at the end of the war. Historian Malcolm Bell, Jr., wrote, “[He] was a Savannah businessman who served in the Revolution as [an] aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene, and who became one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. There, he was best known for his short character sketches of the delegates and for his garrulousness that threatened the secrecy rule.” [4] According to another source, “After the close of the war, he returned to Savannah and engaged in mercantile pursuits as the head of the house of William Pierce & Co. Overtaken by misfortune, the firm went into liquidation. [5]

On 6 April 1784, the Journals of the Continental Congress reflect that the delegates resolved that “the comptroller of accounts, do place to the credit of major general [sic] Greene, lately commanding the army of the United States in the southern department, the sum of three hundred and twenty nine pounds six shillings and three pence, Virginia currency, which appears by the affidavit of major [sic] William Pierce, late aid de camp [sic] to general [sic] Greene, to have been stolen from the trunk of major [sic] Pierce, while the public money was in his custody.” [6] In 1786, Pierce entered the political arena in Georgia and was elected to a seat in the state House of Representatives: the newspaper The Continental Herald reported on 9 February 1786 that “[y]esterday William Pierce and Samuel Stirk, Esqrs. were elected two of the Representatives for Chatham county, in the General Assembly, in the room of William Stephens and Charles Odingfells, Esquires, who declined serving.” [7]

On 9 October 1786, Pierce was elected to a seat in the Continental Congress, “from the first Monday in November next to the first Monday in November [1787].” He attended session of the body from 17 January to 24 May 1787, 6 July to 1 August 1787, and 27 August to 1 October 1787. [8] Amazingly, there are two published pieces of correspondence from Pierce during his Continental Congress service. In the first letter, to a close friend, William [?] Washington, dated 14 January 1787, he wrote:

On the 11th instant we arrived here, after a tedious and dangerous passage of twenty nine Days. Nothing could be more disagreeable than our Voyage, but it gave Mrs. Pierce an opportunity of seeing Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York, which, in some measure compensated for it. Before my arrival Colo. Lee ‘ had taken his departure for Virginia, so that I have not had an opportunity of seeing him. I wish I could have been fortunate enough to have seen him before his departure, that I might have hinted your Speculation to him . . . Congress have not yet made a House, but we shall most certainly in a Day or two be able to Sit. I think if [George] Walton had come on he would probably have been made President; but as it is a Mr. [William] Blount from North Carolina is talked of. [9]

In the second letter, to William Short, dated 25 July 1787, Pierce explained:

As some material changes have taken place in Virginia, and in America generally, you will no doubt expect much information from your correspondents in this quarter. I cannot, however at present, arrange my materials so as to give you a long Letter. Carrington, no doubt, will give you every information of the Virginia affairs, as to Georgia you know nothing about it and therefore can feel no curiosity about the circumstances of that Country. I will then confine myself to such things as are imediately [sic] around me. In January last I took my seat in Congress, and continued untill [sic] May, when I met the Delegates from the different States, in Convention, at Philadelphia. After continuing in that Council untill [sic] all the first principles of the new Government were established, I came on again to New York, and am now in Congress. The business of the Convention is now going on with some degree of harmony. I dare not communicate any of its proceedings. The affairs of Congress, I imagine, you get regular information about. The most material business that we have lately compleated [sic] is the Government of the Western Country, and the direction given to the board of Treasury to sell a large tract of the Western Lands, by which we may probably sink four or five millions of the domestic debt. At present our attention is drawn to the hostile posture of the Indians, but we have concluded on nothing. I enclose you a report of the secretary of War that you may form some idea of our situation. [10]

Evidence is found of the dates of Pierce’s election to the Continental Congress: In March 1786, the Georgia House of Assembly chose numerous officers for the state, including Nathaniel Pendleton as attorney general, and “William Houston [sic], William Few, and Henry Osborne, esqrs. [as] delegates to Congress for the present year; and George Walton, William Few, Abraham Baldwin, and William Pierce, esqrs. [as] delegates for one year from November next.” [11]

In 1786, calls to reform or replace the Articles of Confederation. The Journals of the Continental Congress holds an “Ordinance for the appointment of deputies from this State for the purpose of revising the federal constitution.” It was ordained, “[b]y the representatives of the freemen of the State of Georgia in General Assembly met, and by the authority of the same, that William Few, Abraham Baldwin, William Pierce, George Walton, William Houstoun, and Nathaniel Pendleton, Esquires, be, and they are hereby appointed commissioners, who, or ant two or more of them are hereby authorised [sic] as deputies from this State to meet such deputies as may be appointed and authorised [sic] by other States to assemble in convention at Philadelphia, and to join with them in divising [sic] and discussing all such alternations and farther provisions as may be necessary to render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Union . . . ” [12]

As one of Georgia’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Pierce spoke on the record four times—but is remembered for calling for the establishment of a national legislature that was composed of two houses, with one being elected by the people, and the other by state legislatures, although he believed that elections for the popular house should occur every three years, with similar ballots held for the other house every seven years.

Historian Joseph C. Morton explained:

Today, William Pierce is known primarily as the author of the brief biographical sketches he wrote of his fellow delegates during the first weeks of the Convention. First published in 1828 in the Savannah Georgian, these sketches were sometimes seemingly based on hearsay only, were often inaccurate especially as to trivial details, were unduly censorious to some and undeservedly complimentary to others, but were always interesting and informative. However, they do not tell the readers much about what actually took place during the eighty-eight days the Convention formally met. Instead, they provide often little-known information about some of the lesser known Framers and present word pictures of the delegates that help make them appear more human than the depictions of legendary and scholarly biographies. [13]

Although Pierce supported the document that was ultimately framed, he was forced to leave Philadelphia in the middle of the convention, as his business in Savannah was slowly going bankrupt due to a rice shortage. He declared bankruptcy soon after, stating that he had “neither the skill of an experienced merchant nor any reserve capital” available to continue.

He died in Savannah in December 1789, months after the death of his son. A newspaper in August 1789, explained, “[o]n Sunday the 15th inst. died, Master William Pierce, son William Pierce, Esq. in Savannah, after a short illness.” [14] Sources note that Pierce was buried in the Colonial Park Cemetery in Savannah, but he cannot be found in that yard and no marker was ever laid there. A Georgia newspaper noted, “To speak of the dead is no uncommon thing; however, a friend cannot refrain from paying the last tribute to the mines of Major William Pierce, who died last Thursday week, universally regretted. He at an early period of the contest between American and Great Britain, took a decided part in favour of his country, which he loved to his last moments; for, we may say, when the hand of DEATH was over him, he was a candidate to become its servant. He was particularly noticed by that gallant officer Gen. Greene, who honoured him with his friendship and most secret confidence. Congress, in respect to his services at the battle of the Eutaws [sic], made him a compliment of an elegant Sword, as a token of their approbation of his conduct.” [15]

[1] [1] Pierce official congressional biography, online at http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000340.

[2] [2] The announcement of their wedding is in South-Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser, 9-13 December 1783, 4.

[3] [3] Smith, D.E. Huger, “An Account of the Tattnall and Fenwick Families in South Carolina,” The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, XIV:1 (January 1913), 11.

[4] [4] Bell, Malcolm, Jr, “Major Butler’s Legacy: Five Generations of a Slaveholding Family” (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987), 539.

[5] [5] “William Pierce” in William J. Northen, ed., “Men of Mark in Georgia: a Complete and Elaborate History of the State from its Settlement to the Present Time, Chiefly Told in Biographies and Autobiographies of the Most Eminent Men of Each Period of Georgia’s Progress and Development” (Atlanta: A.B. Caldwell; six volumes, 1907-12), I: 280.

[6] [6] United States, Continental Congress, “Journal of the United States in Congress Assembled: Containing the Proceedings from the Third Day of November, 1783, to the Third Day of June, 1784. Volume IX. Published by Order of Congress” (Philadelphia: Printed by John Dunlap, Printer to the United States in Congress Assembled, 1784), 113.

[7] [7] The Columbian Herald, Or, The Independent Courier of North-America [Charleston, South Carolina], 9 February 1786, 2.

[8] [8] Edmund Cody Burnett, ed., “Letters of Members of the Continental Congress” (Washington, DC: Published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington; eight volumes, 1921-36), VIII:lxxxvi.

[9] [9] William Pierce to [William?] Washington, 14 January 1787, in ibid., VIII:530.

[10] [10] William Pierce to William Short, 25 July 1787, in ibid., VIII:629.

[11] [11] The Freeman’s Journal: Or, The North-American Intelligencer [Philadelphia], 15 March 1786, 3.

[12] [12] United States, Continental Congress, “Journal of the United States in Congress Assembled: Containing the Proceedings from the 5th day of November, 1787, to the 3d day of November 1788. Volume XIII. Published by Order of Congress” (Philadelphia: Printed by John Dunlap, 1788), xxvii. Pierce’s specific commission is printed in the same document, xxx.

[13] [13] Morton, Joseph C., “Shapers of the Great Debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787: A Biography Dictionary” (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006, 239. See also “Notes of Major William Pierce on the Federal Convention of 1787,” The American Historical Review, III:2 (January 1898), 310-34.

[14] [14] The Georgia Gazette, 20 August 1789, 2.

[15] [15] The Georgia Gazette, 24 December 1789, 3.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
"William Leigh Pierce, Jr. (c. 1740–1789)." Continental Congresses, edited by Mark Grossman, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Cong_0342.
APA 7th
William Leigh Pierce, Jr. (c. 1740–1789). Continental Congresses, In M. Grossman (Ed.), Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Cong_0342.
CMOS 17th
"William Leigh Pierce, Jr. (c. 1740–1789)." Continental Congresses, Edited by Mark Grossman. Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Cong_0342.