Henry L. Pierce

Henry Lillie Pierce (August 23, 1825 – December 17, 1896) was a United States representative from Massachusetts. He was born in Stoughton. He attended the State normal school at Bridgewater, and was engaged in manufacturing. He served as mayor of Boston and as a Republican in the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses of the United States. He declined to be a candidate for renomination, was elected again as mayor of Boston in 1877, and died in that city on December 17, 1896. His interment was in Dorchester South Burying Ground.

Henry Lillie Pierce (1825–1896) was the son of Colonel Jesse Pierce (1788–1856) and Elizabeth Vose Lillie Pierce (1786–1871) of Stoughton, Massachusetts. His father was a staunch Methodist had been an educator at Milton Academy and later served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. As a gentleman farmer, he maintained a large farm in Stoughton (formerly a part of Dorchester) until he moved, in 1849, to Washington Street in the Lower Mills of Dorchester with his wife and two sons. Edward Lillie Pierce was then attending Brown University, while Henry Lillie Pierce was at Milton Academy and was to later attend the Bridgewater Normal School. There he pursued classical studies.

In 1849, Henry L. Pierce was hired to work as a clerk for $3 a week at the Baker Chocolate Company. Walter Baker, the owner of the chocolate company and half-brother of Pierce's mother, hired him at a salary of three dollars per week. However, as their political views clashed and caused animosity (Pierce was a vociferous and deeply opinionated Free-Soiler), Pierce left after only a year of politically tinged employment to take up newspaper work in the Midwest. At the request of Sydney Williams, brother-in-law of Baker and managing director of the chocolate mill, Pierce returned to Boston after a year and was appointed manager of the Walter Baker Counting House at 32 South Market Street in Boston (now a part of the Quincy Market retail area). After the deaths of both Walter Baker (in 1852) and Sydney Williams (in 1854), Pierce was permitted to lease the chocolate business from the trustees of the Baker Estate.

The trustees of the Baker Estate, aware that Pierce had only been with the company for five years, leased the business to him for a two-year probationary period, "subject to a life interest payable annually to Mrs. Baker," widow of the owner and step-aunt to Pierce, until her death in 1891. He began manufacturing under the name and style of Walter Baker & Company. In 1856 the trustees extended the lease a further eight years, during which time Pierce began an expansion that would eventually absorb his competitors in the Lower Mills. The trustees continued the ten-year lease until 1884, when "all terms under the Walter Baker will having been satisfied, the entire property is conveyed by the Trustees to Henry L. Pierce." In 1860, Pierce bought the Preston Chocolate Mill from Henry Chapin, to whom it had been sold the previous year, and in 1881, Josiah Webb sold his chocolate mill to Pierce. In 1864, the trustees of the Baker Estate renewed the lease for a second decade. This decade was decisive for Pierce, as he began to enter his chocolate in competitive exhibitions both in this country and abroad. In 1867, Baker's Chocolate and Cocoa won an award in the Paris Exposition for the quality of the product. In 1873, the company won the highest awards at the Vienna Exposition, and in 1876, at the Philadelphia Centennial, Walter Baker chocolate and cocoa won the highest awards. With mill managers and mill employees, Pierce was able to expand the chocolate business and build new mills. In 1894, these were equipped with chocolate-making machines, most of which were imported from Germany, that saved power and were easy to attend.

Walter Baker Chocolate never suffered from any labor movements under Pierce's ownership, and he was regarded as a kind and well-paying employer.

Pierce followed in his father's footsteps and was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1860 to 1862, and again in 1866. He was a vociferous Radical Republican. After Dorchester was annexed to the city of Boston on January 4, 1870, Pierce became a member of the Boston Board of Aldermen. Pierce was elected as a Republican to the Forty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William Whiting. He was reelected to the Forty-fourth Congress and overall served from December 1, 1873, to March 3, 1877.

Pierce was asked to run for mayor of Boston by several businessmen after the city had mismanaged a smallpox outbreak and due to a public urge for strong leadership in the aftermath of the Great Boston Fire of 1872.

Pierce was nominated and elected mayor of Boston in 1872. He took office in January 1873, and resigned the position on November 29, 1873, to serve in the United States House of Representatives for Massachusetts' 3rd congressional district. The remainder of his term (into January 1874) was served by Leonard R. Cutter.