Benjamin Pierce was the third and last child of Franklin and Jane Pierce.
The Pierce Parents

Alas, Jane quickly developed a total distaste for the country’s capital. The weather was abysmal, and her easily compromised health suffered from chills and colds. The companionship of other congressional wives was not to her liking. She considered the women ungodly, unladylike and much too focused on (gasp) politics. She wound up staying in their boarding house rooms most of the time, seldom venturing out except for church services.

Subsequent congressional sessions saw her husband going alone. But Jane now had an excuse. She had become pregnant, and motherhood, being the supreme function of a woman’s life (at least hers), her duty and inclination was to remain home in Concord, New Hampshire.

In 1841, Benjamin Pierce was born. By then, Jane was in her mid-thirties, and realized it was likely her last chance at motherhood. When little Frank Robert was four, he contracted typhoid and died. Jane was understandably devastated, and her inherent melancholy led to two major turning points in the Pierce lives.

She became insistent that her husband resign his Senatorial seat and return to New Hampshire. His place was with his wife and child. In 1843, he duly resigned, pledged to renounce both Washington and alcoholic spirits. He focused on his law practice – and a little “local” New Hampshire politics. On occasion they visited her family in neighboring Massachusetts.

Bennie became her entire raison d’etre. Her life now revolved around her last surviving child.

Bennie had no memory of either of his older brothers. His own life revolved around trying to please his hovering mother.

Bennie was a healthy child. He was mostly home schooled until he was ready for Philips Academy. Jane was well educated and her attitudes toward education were strong. Her own father had been a minister/educator, and President of Bowdoin College in Maine.

Bennie’s religious education was supreme, however. Sunday school classes were mandatory, and it is said that Jane’s great pleasure was listening to him recite his Bible lesson while she was sewing or knitting. Their pastor was a regular guest for tea or dinner. Jane was happy with her husband home and sober.

As Bennie grew, his attitudes were influenced by his mother’s strong feelings. Against politics. Against alcohol. Against anything that was not heavily dosed with religious morality and convention.

Some contemporaries have suggested Bennie was becoming priggish.

But Bennie was said to have remarked to his mother, “I hope Papa loses. I don’t want us to live in Washington. I know we shan’t be happy there, will we Mama?”

Only weeks before the inauguration, The Pierces spent Christmas with her sister Mary and her husband John Aiken in Amherst – and took Bennie, now eleven and attending Philips Academy. It was not a long trip, and train travel had improved rapidly in time and speed and even comfort.

They planned to return home on January 3, 1853 – a bitterly cold day. Only a mile past the Amherst station (and there are several versions to this story), the train hit rocks (or derailed, or, or…). Bennie, said to be playing between adjoining cars (or standing near a window, or, or…), was thrown from the train (or crushed as it overturned).

Pierce and his family boarded a train carrying two cars and began their travel back to New Hampshire. At around 1:00 p.m., three miles away from the Andover station (with one possible location being cited as "between Argyle and Arundel Street"n), one of the train axles became fractured after running into some rocks that had fallen onto the tracks. The coach that Pierce and his family were in then derailed and fell down an embankment that was between 15 and 20 feet below, destroying the car. Benjamin, who was standing up at the time, was the only fatality.

While Franklin and Jane did not sustain any severe injuries, Franklin immediately saw that Benjamin had been nearly decapitated as a result of the wreck and covered up his son's body with cloth so that Jane would not have to see it.

News of the accident spread across the nation, but it was initially (and incorrectly) reported that Franklin Pierce was also among the fatalities of the wreck.

His body was taken back to the Aiken home for private funeral services. His grief-stricken mother was too overcome to even attend. Nor could she accompany the casket back to Concord for burial. Nor could she attend her husband’s inaugural ceremony. It was weeks before she even arrived at the White House. It would be two years before she could even assume any limited First Lady duties.

She wore black for the rest of her life.

Pierce’s good friend Nathaniel Hawthorne remarked, “Jane was never really of this world.”