Death
Franklin Pierce died in Concord, New Hampshire, at 4:49 am on October 8, 1869, at 64 years old from cirrhosis of the liver. President Ulysses S. Grant, who later defended Pierce's service in the Mexican War, declared a day of national mourning. Newspapers across the country carried lengthy front-page stories examining Pierce's colorful and controversial career. He was interred next to his wife and two of his sons, all of whom had predeceased him, in the Minot Enclosure in the Old North Cemetery of Concord.
In his last will, which he signed January 22, 1868, he left an unusually large number of specific bequests to friends, family and neighbors, including the children of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He left $1,000 in trust to the local library. The interest was used to purchase books. He left gifts of money, paintings, and other items to various people. The cane of General Lafayette was among the bequests. His nephew Frank Pierce received the residue.
Read more about this topic: Franklin Pierce
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“If thou art rich, thou’rt poor,
For like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives,
Know then the thing that swells thee is thy bane;
For the same beauty doth, in bloody leaves.
The sentence of thy early death contain.”
—Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608–1666)
“For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)