Joshua Peirce

Quick Facts

Significance:

Builder of the park headquarters building

Place of Birth:

Washington, DC

Date of Birth:

1795

Place of Death:

Georgetown, DC

Date of Death:

1869

Place of Burial:

Washington, DC

Cemetery Name:

Rock Creek Cemetery

Joshua Peirce was the youngest child of Isaac Pierce and Elizabeth Cloud Peirce. He grew up in what is now Rock Creek Park in the new District of Columbia.

Joshua experienced loss at a young age when his eldest brother, Job, died in 1804. Job's widow and daughter came to live with the rest of the Peirce family in the Rock Creek Valley. His older sisters and brother Abner also lived at home at the time. 

Joshua took a keen interest in horticulture and in 1823, he left his father's home to build his own estate. His father gifted him a significant tract of land adjacent to the family homestead and Joshua began his business there.

There is some question as to whether Joshua had the stone mansion built or if he added to an existing structure. The house sat atop a hill and overlooked the Rock Creek Valley and the distant city of Washington. He called his estate Linnaean Hill, after the Swedish scientist, Carl Linnaeus, who formalized binomial nomenclature and was a noted botanist.

Joshua married Susan Coates of Pennsylvania sometime between 1823 and 1830. By the time the 1830 census was taken, her nephew, Joshua P. Klingle was living with them. 

 

A man of science and standing

Joshua Peirce's name appears in newspapers all over the country in the 19th century. He was interested in the natural world and established himself as a skilled botanist. He sold trees, shrubberies and plants locally from a nursery yard on 14th Street NW, and from the grounds of his estate in what is now Rock Creek Park. He showcased new plants and flowers with friends who also enjoyed botany and he was well respected in that sphere.

Peirce was paid by the DC government to manage trees along avenues in the city and was responsible for beautifying many of the early streets. Many of his plants were also installed in the garden of the White House. 

Peirce experimented with silk worms in the summer of 1827 and was involved with trying to introduce them to the area. He held an exhibition of them at Linnaean Hill and invited anyone seriously interested in silk spinning to come and view them. Notice of the efforts reached newspapers as far north as Vermont.

Peirce also took part in scientific observations. An account from a St. Louis, Missouri paper dated April 1835, discusses the cold temperatures across the country.

"Mr. Joshua Pierce, at Linnaean Hill, four miles north west of Washington, communicates the following interesting fact. At an hour before sunrise, on the 8th January, he placed his thermometer in an exposed situation on the summit of the hill, where his house stands. At thirty minutes before sunrise, it had fallen to four degrees below zero; he then removed it to the valley, and at twenty minutes before sunrise it fell to eighteen degrees below zero; he then returned it to the summit of the hill, and found it as before, four degrees below zero, exhibiting the astonishing difference of fourteen degrees between to locations not more than four hundred yards distant. The height of the hill is from ninety to one hundred feet." Niles National Register, St. Louis, MO April 11, 1835

Peirce was well respected. In October of 1840, he was part of a grand jury and by the end of the 1840s he was being repeatedly appointed as a member of the Levy Court. 

Peirce as an enslaver

Though Joshua Peirce's father had been a Quaker, a faith which did not believe in slavery, Joshua had spent his entire life in the District of Columbia, which permitted it. Both Isaac and his son Joshua enslaved people to run their large plantations and farming operations.

The 1830 census shows three white people living on the Linnaean Hill estate in addition to six enslaved persons and two free colored persons. 

In 1840, census records show the Peirce enslaved thirteen people and had one free colored person living on the estate.

Both the 1850 and 1860 Slave Schedules for Washington, DC list ten enslaved persons under Joshua Peirce's name.

The April 1862 Emancipation records finally list the names of the enslaved persons. Joshua is compensated for eleven enslaved persons--including William Beckett, who he listed as being an invaluable part of his business. 

 

Later years

Joshua Peirce continued to employ William Beckett on his estate and relied on him to run part of his nursery business. Acquaintances who knew him stated that he did not want his nephew (and heir) Joshua Peirce Klingle bothering William Beckett in the running of the business and that William's salary was to be several hundred dollars a year.

The nursery on 14th street proved to be too much for Peirce and he sold it in 1868.

Joshua Peirce died in 1869. His will had several codicils and comprises nearly 40 hand-written pages. He made sure that his living sisters and their relatives received money as well as his nephews who were running the Peirce estate next door. Many of the codicils to his will involve the people listed on the 1862 Emancipation Records. He set aside a house, land and an annuity to the two oldest people that appeared on the record, Jeremiah Gibson and Nancy Carroll. To the other Carroll, Rhoades and Beckett family members he left large sums of money that were to be paid to them at the time they reached adulthood. 

To his nephew, Joshua Klingle, he left the house, the land and the bulk of the estate.