Jarvis Pierce Sr. was born 8 November 1771 in Worcester, Massachusetts. His parents were Josiah Pierce who served in the Revolutionary War and Sarah Gale. His Pierce ancestry went back to John Pers of Norfolk, England, who came with his wife and younger children to Massachusetts in the 1600s. The family lived in Watertown for several generations. His father, Josiah, moved to Worcester when he married Sarah Gale. Pierce was spelled Peirce by the Peirce family in Massachusetts. Some descendants later changed the spelling of their names.
Jarvis Sr. married Rhoda Darby May 15, 1794, in Westminster, Massachusetts. Their first child was Myra (Mira) who was born December 9, 1794, either in Westminster or in Craftsbury, Vermont. The Town Records in Craftsbury list their first seven children as being born in Craftsbury.1 The second child, Eliza, was born in 1798 and Jarvis Jr. was born in 1800.2 Why they moved to Craftsbury is unknown but Jarvis Sr. had an uncle living there by 1800, Byfield Pierce.3 In 1800 Jarvis is listed in the census for Worcester County, Massachusetts. Jarvis and Byfield are both in Craftsbury in 1810.4 Since Jarvis was in Massachusetts in 1800 it seems unlikely that the first three children would be born in Vermont.
Sometime after Josiah died in 1806 and his estate was settled, Jarvis moved his family to Springfield, Illinois. This was sometime between 1815 and 1820, and why they went to Illinois is not known. They did not remain in Springfield long, moving by 1820 to southern Illinois, near Carmi, in White County. A Jarvis Pierce is listed in the 1820 census in White County, Illinois, in the Fox River Township.5 The household included one white male over 21 and 8 other people. Later they lived in Gallatin County, just south of White County, in the New Haven township, where they supposedly had a farm.
In addition to farming, Jarvis Sr. also practiced law according to a history of the family written by Lucy Reardon Bender, a granddaughter of Jarvis Sr.6 A Jarvis Pierce is listed in the 1830 census for Gallatin County. Although Jarvis seems to be an uncommon name, there were other Pierces in Illinois. In addition, names were not spelled consistently. So Pierce could be Pierce, Peirce, Pearce, Pirce, Price or even Perice. Some of these spellings are typos, and some of these result from the difficulty in reading the handwriting in various documents. Jarvis is sometimes transcribed as James. Another Jarvis Pearce appears to have been born in 1840 in Gallatin County, but was not related to Jarvis Pierce. Jarvis Pierce Jr. was in Jefferson County in 1820 and was still there in 1830. He later moved nearby to Harrisburg, Illinois.
Jarvis and Rhoda died either in White or Gallatin Counties, he in 1831 and she in 1836. Lucy Bender states in her history that they died in Gallatin County near New Haven and that they were buried there. In the same book she also says that they both died in White County. Jarvis was supposedly one of the wealthiest men in the county, but whether this was White County or Gallatin County is not known. It would seem likely that they were in Gallatin County since they are there in the 1830 census. They were close to New Haven, Gallatin County, and New Haven sits very close to the border of White and Gallatin Counties.7
From a history of Gallatin County:
I have heard that the fine old Pierce home, built about 1840 near the center of S.W. 1/4 of Sec 6 of T8 R10, served as a stage stop. It is now known as the Green House and owned by Emmett Downen.8 This would not have been the home of Rhoda and Jarvis Sr. since they were both dead by 1840. This may have been the home of Jarvis's son, Joseph Crawford Pierce, and then his son, Oliver Pierce. Whether the land this house sits on was Jarvis and Rhoda's property is not known. In her history of the family, Lucy Bender says that "The old Peirce home is now in White county."9
Jarvis Pierce Sr. died October 28, 1831, and Rhoda died March 10, 1836. I have looked for wills, probate records and burials but have turned up nothing. These dates came from Lucy Rearden Bender whose sources were Eliza Harvey Pierce, widow of Oliver Pierce, son of Joseph Crawford Pierce and grandson of Jarvis Sr., and Dora Pierce Burgner, daughter of Jarvis Jr. These two women had old family bibles, photographs, letters, land grants and reminiscences which they shared with Lucy Bender. Eliza Pierce was living in Norris City in the 1930s, not far from where her husband, Oliver, was born, when Lucy Bender wrote her history of the family. Endnotes 2 In the 1860, 1870 and 1880 U.S. censuses, Jarvis Jr.' place of birth is always Massachusetts.
3 Byfield is in the 1800 census for Craftsbury, Orleans County, Vermont.
4 1810 U.S. Census. Craftsbury, Orleans County, Vermont, p.795.
5 p.182 in census.
6 Genealogy and History of Peirce and Darby Families with Collateral Lineages of Warren, Fiske, Conant, Bemis and Others from Rognwald 931 A.D. to the Thirty-sixth generation in America. Compiled by Lucy Rearden Bender, n.d. [possibly 1936]. Family History Center, 929.273 P353bl.
7 "In September 1812, Gallatin County was one of two new counties formed from a part of Randolph, with Shawneetown named as the seat of government. White County was formed from a part of Gallatin in 1815. Franklin in 1823 again reduced Gallatin's borders, then Hardin in 1839, and Saline was organized in 1847, leaving Gallatin with her present boundaries." Miner, Glen. Cemeteries of Gallatin County, Illinois, and a History of the County, vol. 2, 1979, p.v. Boundary changes between Gallatin and White Counties may have caused the Pierce property to be located first in one county and then another.
8 Miner, Glen. Cemeteries of Gallatin County, Illinois, and a History of the County, vol.1, 1979, p.47.
9 Bender. Genealogy and History of Peirce and Darby Families, p.36.
1The town records list all of the first seven children together but the parents names are not given. More research needs to be done to clarify why Myra is in both the Westminster and Craftsbury birth records and whether the children were actually born in Craftsbury since there was no record of Jarvis or his family in the 1800 Orleans County, Vermont census.
Craftsbury, Vermont, Vital Records, 1797-1868. Craftsbury, Orleans County, Vermont: Town Clerk, 1903. Family History Center Microfilm #0028021.