19 Facts About James Pearce

James Pearce was a member of the US House of Representatives, representing the second district of Maryland from 1835 to 1839 and 1841 to 1843.

James Pearce later served as a US Senator from Maryland from 1843 until his death in 1862.

The James Pearce Plan provided a solution for the boundary dispute between Texas and the Federal government.

James Pearce wrote a bill that granted Texas $10 million in compensation for agreeing with the state borders charted by the government.

James Pearce attended a private academy in Alexandria and entered the College of New Jersey in 1819.

James Pearce graduated in 1822 at the age of seventeen with honors and started studying law in Baltimore under Judge John Glenn and attorney David Hoffman, an American legal ethics pioneer and author of Fifty Resolutions in Regard to Professional Deportment.

Ahead of time, in 1824, James Pearce passed exams and was admitted to the Maryland Bar, commencing practice in Cambridge, Maryland for a year.

In 1825, James Pearce moved with his father in Louisiana, and briefly engaged in sugar planting business, then he returned to Kent County, Maryland, in 1828, where he started the practice of law in Chestertown.

In 1829, Pearce married Martha J Laird; they were raising 3 children in Chestertown, Maryland until 1845, when Martha died.

In 1847, James Pearce remarried, his new wife became Matilda Cox Ringgold; they had one child.

From 1831 until 1835, James Pearce was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates.

James Pearce was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Congresses, serving from March 4,1835 until March 3,1839, but was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1838 to the Twenty-sixth Congress, losing to Philip Thomas.

James Pearce was again elected to Congress in 1840, and served one term from March 4,1841, until March 3,1843.

James Pearce was again elected as a Whig to the United States Senate in 1843, and was re-elected in 1849,1855, and 1861, the last time as a Democrat, and served from March 4,1843, until his death in 1862.

James Pearce served in 1861 for two months as chairman of the Committee on Finance.

James Pearce was involved with the United States Coast Survey, which was among the oldest United States Government scientific organizations, and the United States Botanic Garden.

The James Pearce Plan provided a solution for the boundary dispute between Texas and the Federal government.

James Pearce wrote a bill that granted Texas $10 million in compensation for agreeing with the state borders charted by the government.

James Pearce died in Chestertown on December 20,1862, and is interred in New Chester Cemetery.