Michael Pierce

Michael Pierce was at Hingham by 1653: on 15 July 1653, as "Michael Pierce of Hingham," he took John Read as an apprentice for nine years (Pierce Genealogy p. 21). A London tract of 1676, News from New-England, calls him "Brother to Captain Pierce of London." His first wife died in 1662 (Hobart's journal), and about 1663 he married Annah, widow James, "my beloved wife Annah Pierce" of his will (Deane p. 325; Pierce Genealogy pp. 33-34).

He settled at Scituate. When the town chose him lieutenant in 1666, the Court answered: "conserning Mr Peirse, wee haue not to object concerning him but that hee is a stranger to vs," and put Sergeant John Damman in charge instead (PCR 4:127, 5 June 1666). Three years later the Colony court commissioned him captain of Scituate's company (Pierce Genealogy p. 17n), with Isaac Buck as his lieutenant. His son Ephraim married Hannah Holbrook in 1670, and his daughter Abigail married her brother John Holbrook (c. 1650-1731) in 1671.

King Philip's War. On 15 Jan 1675/6 he made his will, "being now by the appointment of God going out to war, against the Indians." It gives "my daughter, Abigail Holbrook five pounds"; "my daughter Mary Holbrook, twenty pounds"; and £5 each to his grandchildren Elizabeth and Abigail Holbrook (Pierce Genealogy pp. 34-35). On 29 Feb 1675/6 the colony's council of war ordered the men pressed in the southern towns "to be att Plymouth on Weddensday, the eight of this instant, in order vnto a further march, and with them 20 or 30 of the southeren Indians ... to goe forth vnder the comaund of Captaine Michael Peirse and Leiftenant Samuell Fuller" (Records of the Colony of New Plymouth 5:187).

On 26 Mar 1676, near Pawtucket Falls, the company was drawn into an ambush and surrounded by the Narragansett under Canonchet. Pierce "cast his 63 English and 20 Indians into a Ring, and fought Back to Back," one London tract told it, and the fight went on for "about five Hours" (Drake, The Old Indian Chronicle). Hubbard tells of Amos, one of the Christian Indians with him, who "after the Captain was shot in his Leg or Thigh ... would not leave him" (Hubbard, Narrative, Drake's ed. 1:175-176). Rev. Noah Newman wrote from Rehoboth the next day that Pierce's men "were enclosed with a great multitude of the enemy, which hath slain fifty-two of our Englishmen, and eleven Indians." Fifteen of the dead were from Scituate, among them "Capt. Pierce" and Benjamin Chittenden (Deane, History of Scituate, pp. 122-123; Soldiers in King Philip's War, pp. 359-360). "Captain Pierce was slain, and forty and nine English with him, and eight (or more) Indians who did assist the English," Increase Mather wrote that year (A Brief History of the Warr).

Four more of the family's lines lost a man with him that afternoon: Benjamin Chittenden of Scituate, probably a son of Isaac Chittenden; Benjamin Nye of Sandwich; John Walker of Eastham, a grandson of Nicholas Snow; and, probably, John Read Jr. of Rehoboth, a son of John Read, whom Rehoboth's records count "slain on the 26th of March, 1676" (Bodge p. 464), perhaps at Nine Men's Misery.

At the court of 22 July 1676 "the last will and testament of Captaine Michaell Peirse, of Scittuate, lately slayne on the countryes service, bearing date the 15th of January, 1675," was presented, and the executor, Benjamin Peirse, was to hold back a quarter of each legacy until the estate proved clear of debts (PCR 5:203). Mr John Jacob of Hingham was made guardian of "John Peirse, the son of Capt Peirse, deceased" (PCR 5:213).

Open questions

• His origin, and his first wife's name.
• His will in the original, in the Plymouth Colony probate records.