10 Facts About Cyrus Peirce

Cyrus Peirce went to Framingham Academy before going to Harvard.

Cyrus Peirce then returned to Nantucket where he resumed his teaching career.

Cyrus Peirce left Nantucket to begin preaching in 1818 and was ordained a Unitarian minister in North Reading on May 19,1819, and ministered there until May 19,1827, when he resigned to take charge of a school in North Andover, where he stayed until 1831.

Cyrus Peirce eventually became his assistant, but left to start her own school on the island.

In 1838 Cyrus Peirce became the first principal of Nantucket High School, but left in July 1839 at Horace Mann's behest to go to Lexington to become the first head of the first public normal school in the country.

The experimental normal school in Lexington, which was to evolve into today's Framingham State University, began on a modest note with only three students, but it had grown to 42 by July 1842, when ill health forced Cyrus Peirce to resign his position there and return to Nantucket.

Cyrus Peirce served until May 1849, when ill health again forced him to resign.

Cyrus Peirce's words are the motto of today's Framingham State University, which has acknowledged him as its first president.

Ill health again forced Cyrus Peirce to retire but he remained associated with the academy until his death.

Cyrus Peirce died on April 5,1860, in West Newton and is buried in Section TT, Lot 148 in Prospect Hill Cemetery in Nantucket.