PIERCE, Benjamin and Rachel - married 60 years (1887)

PIERCE, COPPOCK

Posted By: Deborah Brownfield - Stanley (email)
Date: 1/21/2005 at 03:19:44

Fairfield Ledger
September 14, 1887
Page 3, Column 8

MARRIED SIXTY YEARS.

On August 30, 1837 (sic - should be 1827), in Ohio, Benjamin PIERCE was married to Miss Rachel COPPOCK. On August 30th, 1887, at the home of these good people in this city, where they have resided for almost a third of a century, a few friends gathered with them and celebrated the 60th anniversary of their marriage. Though quiet and unostentatious in all their life in Fairfield, and with an acquaintance almost limited to the older settlers, few people in our midst have done more true charitable work and more eventful histories than Mr. and Mrs. PEIRCE [sic]. Both were reared according to the strictest tenets of the orthodox Friends, but gradually grew into what they are pleased to term liberal ideas, relying more upon faithful works and less upon creed and form. Deeming unceasing work of hand and mind from right ends the riteous prayer which availeth much, they ceased making formal prayer and entered upon a life of work. The spirit of abolitionism was born in both of them. Mrs. PEIRCE [sic] came from the celebrated COPPOCK family. Two of her cousins, Ed. and Barclay COPPOCK, enlisted under John Brown’s standard in Cedar County, this state, and were with him in his famous Harper’s Ferry raid. Barclay escaped to the mountains after the encounter with the troops, but Ed. was hung on the same scaffold with the martyr Brown. In all those troublous times both these good people risked life and fortune for the slave. For years their home was a station on the great underground railroad on which so many of these poor people took passage, and many is the weary refugee who has received aid at their hands. With the means at their command they not only gave succor to the fleeing slave, but the widow and the orphan have never gone from their home empty handed, and though never blessed with children of their own their roof has sheltered many a fatherless and motherless child. The works and memories of Mr. and Mrs. PEIRCE [sic] will live long after they have gone, and their simple lives and excellent example will long remain in the minds of those who knew their history.