Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 104

by HERBERT J. STOECKEL More About the Chinese Yankee Joseph Pierce, reportedly bought by a Berlin sea captain in China for $6, married a Portland girl, raised a family. THIS IS A sequel to the feature, "Oriental Yank from Berlin," printed in The Cou-rant Magazine of June 30, last. The article related briefly how Joseph Pierce, a native of China, presumbly brought to Connecticut when a boy, grew to manhood in Kensington, Berlin, served honorably during the Civil War with Washington, both the Union veteran and his widow having applied for such allowances, he while still living, she after his death. The article did not tell much more about Pierce since details of his personal life when he came to America and how he happened to locate in Berlin, for instance were unavailable at the time the Pierce story was written.

HOWEVER, on publication of the article, The Courant Magazine immediately heard from two readers who have contributed enough authentic information about Joseph Pierce to round out his colorful and unique life story. Harold F. Harrison, 13 Wilcox East Berlin, employed by starving family. Another Peck family version is that the boy's elder brother, like the father, literally sold his kid brother for about $50-60 into foreign slavery to get rid of him. Slavery then existed in the United States and Amos, had he wished, could legally have resold the boy in the South.

It will be noted that the foregoing differs from the statement on the photograph that Pierce was picked up at sea. The crew of Capt. Amos Peck's ship were soon calling the boy Joe and the name stuck. Later, in Kensington, he formally became Joseph Pierce, named after Franklin Pierce who in 1852 was campaigning for the Presidency or had just become the 14th President of the United States in March 1853. The dates cited approximate the year Amos, a bachelor, brought Joe to the Peck homestead in Kensington and handed his 10-year-old "slave" over to his mother to rear since he was then starting on another voyage.

Ten years later, in 1862, Pierce enlisted in New Britain and joined the 14th at about the age of 20. The Yale-Peck memoir further states that' Mother Peck taught Joe how to read and cipher and that he went to school with Amos' younger brothers and sisters in the same country school in Kensington they attended. Amos, born in Kensington on May 2, 1825, died at Santa Barbara, on Feb. 12, 1882, evidently on the eve of another voyage "out East." J3E WAS A source of trouble to the Pecks, we learn, before he became entirely used to the Yankee cuisine. They would find him in a barn cooking a batch of rice his own way, the fire blazing on some dirt he had carted in, a manifestly dangerous operation because of the close proximity of the hay he had thrust aside to allow room for the fire.

To discourage this unorthodox culinary practice, the Pecks allowed their Chinese adopted son to cook his rice in an open fireplace within the house. "The house where Joe was brought up still stands," Mrs. Yale says. "Mrs. Frederick Peck, whose husband was my brother, still lives there.

Also the barn in which Joe built the fire is still there on Chamberlain Highway in the Blue Hills section of Kensington. The State Fish Hatchery is on land that was once part the Peck farm and which has always been known as Peck Place. In fact, there Was a fish hatchery there in the early 1000s. Although he died far from home, Capt. Amos Peck's name is inscribed on the Peck monument in the South Burying Ground in Kens-sington." Mrs.

Y'ale's aunt, the late Mrs. Arthur W. 'Alice Peck) Upson of New Britain, whose last years were spent with her son, Dr. William Upson of Suffield, some 25 years ago compiled some family reminiscenses and mentioned that Pierce during his Meriden years he also lived in New Britain af-er the Civil War) was a confirmed dandy "with his silk hat and everything that went with it," she wrote. Incidentally, the scarce likeness of Peirce which illustrated The Courant Magazine article of June 30 shows Pierce sartorially elegant in formal evening garb.

Incongruously, he is seen still wearing his thick, glossy queue. Evidently, he was as proud of that embellishment as he was of "the tails" he had donned for the big occasion of having his picture taken. Pierce (left) the only Chinese enlisted in the Army of the during the Civil War, elegant western attire but his queue. Below are both of a photograph, showing small daughter. The picture was made by D.

French, a photographer and is the of Harold F. Harrison of Berlin, whose grandfather with Pierce in the Union's Regiment. the New Britain Machine New Britain, said that he has a photograph of a little girl, taken years ago by D. French, a Meriden photographer whose studio was at 40'i East Main St. On the back of the photograph is written in ink: "Daughter of Joseph Pierce who was picked up 40 miles from shore in the China Sea by Capt.

Peck, Kensington. He married Miss Morgan of Portland." As the photographer, herewith reproduced, clearly reveals, cute little Miss Pierce, in American dress, hugging her doll and looking just a bit frightened at the camera, bears a decided Chinese cast of countenance. Since only two adult sons are recorded as having survived the Pierces and no daughter is mentioned, it js likely that she did not reach maturity. HARRISON explains that the photograph was left him by hi mother, Mrs. Gertrude E.

i Stroud i Harrison of Middletown who died about three or four years ago. Her father, Harrison's grandfather, was Edwin Stroud Middletown who also served in the 14th ith Pierce. When Pierce, age 73, died on Jan. 3, 1916 in Meriden, where he resided during his latter years, the death certificate read that he was a retired engraver. Since John Harrison, Harrison's paternal grandfather, was an engraver, too, in Meri-tkn's famous silverware industry, it is logical that Pierce was similary employed locally, also thiit Pierce could have given the photograph of his daughter either to Stroud, his onetime 14th Regiment comrade, or to his fellow-engraver, Harrison.

The sea captain, who figures so vivfdly in the Pierce saga, was Capt. Amos Peck, son of Norris Peck of Kensington, in turn a descendant of Deacon Paul Peck, one of the original local proprietors of Hartford and who came overland from Cambridge, to Hartford with the pioneer English Hooker party in 1636. Another reason Why this is an old Hartford tale is that the 14th was formed in Hartford, encamped near here on the Berlin Turnpike and left Hartford aboard two Connecticut River steamboats for the seat of war on Aug. 25, 1362. ACCORDING to Mrs.

David H. Yaie, 579 Yale Meriden, Capt. Amos Peck was her great-uneie. The Pierce story has long been a Peck family tradition, ami we're indebted to Mrs. Yale and her brother, Norman Peck, for the following engrossing memoir.

It is certain that Amos was in the China trade. He is said to have bought Joseph Pierce, then 10 years old, from the lad's father in China, in or near for W. the father desperately wwiing the money to feed his the fighting 14th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, from July, 1862 to May, 1865, and subsequently married a Yankee girl from downriver Portland and raised a family. Most of the biographical facts in the Pierce article were obtained from the Pierce pension file in the National Archives, Aft Couriot Maguin. Augiat 4, 1963 Joseph Potomac affected retained sides Pierce's Meriden property East served 14th f-' 4 7 I Hti n.toi28mf&llu&,il Jt i siZlx.

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