Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/277

 PEIRCE

PEIRCE

A.B., 1859, A.M., 1862, and from the Lawrence Scientific school, S.B., 1863. Entering the ser- vice of the U.S. coast survey, and in 1872 made assistant in that capacity, he undertook impor- tant investigations on the density and ellipticity of the earth, on metrology, measurements of light waves, etc. His researches into logic, his- tory of science, sensation of color and stellar pho- tometry, are well known. He was twice married, first in 1862, to Melusina Fay (q.v.), secondly to Juliette Froissy of Nancy, France. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, in 1877, and other scientific bodies admitted him to member- ship ; Harvard collegeand Johns Hopkins univer- sity appointed him to lectureships on logic, and in 1869 and 1892 he delivered courses of lectures before the Lowell Institute in Boston. He is the author of : Photometric Researches (1878) ; fre- quent contributions to the Nation and other jour- nals, and many memoirs and articles on logic, psychology, metaphysics, mathematics, gravita- tion, astronomy, optics, chemistry, engineering, library cataloguing and early English pronuncia- tion ; edited, with additions, " Studies in Logic by Members of the Johns Hopkins University " (1883), and " Linear Associative Algebra " by Benjamin Peirce (1882); contributed most of the philoso- phical and many other definitions in the " Cen- tury Dictionary," and wrote many articles in the '• Dictionary of Pyschology and Philosophy."

PEIRCE, Ebenezer Weaver, soldier, was born in Freetown, Mass., April 5, 1822; son of Ebene- zer and Joanna (Weaver) Peirce ; grandson of Capt. Job and Elizabeth (Rounsville) Peirce, and of Col. Benjamin and Amy (Brownell) Weaver, and a descendant of Abraham and Rebecca Peirce, who came to America as early as 1623, and settled in Plymouth colony. Ebenezer W. Peirce attended the Freetown academy, and later removed to Lakeville, Mass. He was married, Dec. 13, 1849, to Irene Isabel, daughter of Capt. Sylvanvis Paj-ne, of Freetown, and until the be- ginning of the civil war held several important local offices. He was commissioned major of the Old Colony regiment in 1844 ; brigadier-general of state militia in 1855, and accompanied Gen. B. F. Butler to Fort Monroe, where he was placed in command of a brigade made up of five New York three months' militia regiments, detachments from the 4tli Massachusetts and 1st Vermont militia and four guns of the regular U.S. artillery, commanded by Lieutenant Greble. With this force of 3500 men he conducted the attack on the Confederate force under Col. J. B. Magruder at Big and Little Bethel, June 10, 1861. His com- mand under explicit orders from General Butler was to concentrate near Little Bethel, where ad- ditional troops from Newport News were to join

him, and together they were to attack the enemy. The advancing columns, each mistaking the other for the enemy, opened fire, which warned the Confederates, and after a short skirmish. General Peirce was obliged to retreat. He was given command of the 29th Massachusetts volunteers, Dec. 31, 1861 ; assigned to the 2d brigade, 1st division, 2d army corps, and lost an arm in the battle of White Oak Swamp, Va., June 30, 1862. He returned to his regiment in the 2d brigade, 1st division, 9th corps. Army of the Ohio, and was present at the defence of Knoxville, Tenn., Nov- ember-December, 1863. He resigned his commis- sion in November, 1864. He was appointed collec- tor of internal revenue for the first district of Mass- achusetts, b}- President Johnson, in August, 1866, but the appointment was not confirmed by the senate. He is the author of : The Peirce Family of the Old Colony (1870); Contributions, Bio- graphical, Genealogical and Historical (1874); Indian History, Biography and Genealogy (1878); Civil, Military and Prof essional Lists of Plymouth and Rhode Island Colonies (1881). General Peirce was one of the few general officers of the volun- teer service to survive the century and in 1903 he was residing at Freetown, Mass.

PEIRCE, James Mills, mathematician, was born in Cambridge, Mass., May 1, 1834; son of Benjamin (q.v. ) and Sarah Hunt (Mills) Peirce. He was graduated from Harvard, A.B., 1853, A.M., 1856 ; was a tutor there, 1854-58 and 1860-61 ; as- sistant professor of mathematics, 1861-69 ; uni- versity professor of mathematics, 1869-85 ; Per- kins professor of astronomy and mathematics from 1885 ; secretary of the academic council, 1872-90 ; dean of the graduate school, 1890-95. and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, 1895-98, His courses of instruction at first covered analytic geometry, elementary and modern ; the diffei-en- tial and integral calculus ; the theory of func- tions and mechanics ; besides elementary and subsidiary branches. Later he confined his teach- ing chiefly to quaternions ; the general theory of algebraic plane curves and of triangular and tetrahedral co-ordinates ; linear associative alge- bra; the elements of the algebra of logic. His administrative duties were as secretary and dean. He was elected a member of the American As- sociation for the Advancement of Science and of the American Mathematical society and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sci- ences, and is the author of : A Text-Book of An- alytic Geometry (1857) ; Three and Four Place Tables of Logarithmic and Trigometric Functions (1871) ; Tlie Elements of Logarithms (1873), and Mathematical Tables chiefly to Four Figures (1st series, 1879) ; and editor of his father's last work " Idealty in the Physical Sciences," which was published in 1881.