Henry Lillie Pierce
Pierce, circa 1870–1880
Mayor of Boston
In office 1878–1879
Preceded by	Frederick O. Prince
Succeeded by	Frederick O. Prince
In office 1872–1873
Preceded by	William Gaston
Succeeded by	Samuel C. Cobb Leonard R. Cutter (acting)
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts's3rd district
In office December 1, 1873 – March 3, 1877
Preceded by	William Whiting
Succeeded by	Walbridge A. Field
Member of theMassachusetts House of Representatives
In office 1860 – 1862, 1866
Personal details
Born	August 23, 1825 Stoughton, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	December 17, 1896(1896-12-17) (aged 71) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Resting place	Dorchester Burying Ground
Political party	Republican

Henry Lillie Pierce (August 23, 1825 – December 17, 1896) was aUnited States representative fromMassachusetts. He was born inStoughton. He attended the State normal school atBridgewater, and was engaged in manufacturing. He served asmayor of Boston and as aRepublican in theForty-third andForty-fourth Congresses of theUnited States. He declined to be a candidate for renomination, was elected again as mayor of Boston in 1877, and died in that city on December 17, 1896. His interment was inDorchester South Burying Ground.

Henry Lillie Pierce (1825–1896) was the son ofColonel Jesse Pierce (1788–1856) and Elizabeth Vose Lillie Pierce (1786–1871) of Stoughton, Massachusetts. His father was a staunchMethodist had been an educator atMilton Academy and later served in theMassachusetts House of Representatives. As agentleman farmer, he maintained a large farm in Stoughton (formerly a part ofDorchester) until he moved, in 1849, toWashington Street in the Lower Mills of Dorchester with his wife and two sons. Edward Lillie Pierce was then attendingBrown University, while Henry Lillie Pierce was at Milton Academy and was to later attend the Bridgewater Normal School. There he pursued classical studies.^[1]

In 1849, Henry L. Pierce was hired to work as a clerk for $3 a week at theBaker Chocolate Company. Walter Baker, the owner of the chocolate company and half-brother of Pierce's mother, hired him at a salary of three dollars per week. However, as their political views clashed and caused animosity (Pierce was a vociferous and deeply opinionatedFree-Soiler), Pierce left after only a year of politically tinged employment to take up newspaper work in theMidwest. At the request of Sydney Williams, brother-in-law of Baker and managing director of the chocolate mill, Pierce returned to Boston after a year and was appointed manager of the Walter Baker Counting House at 32 South Market Street in Boston (now a part of theQuincy Market retail area). After the deaths of both Walter Baker (in 1852) and Sydney Williams (in 1854), Pierce was permitted to lease the chocolate business from the trustees of the Baker Estate.

The trustees of the Baker Estate, aware that Pierce had only been with the company for five years, leased the business to him for a two-year probationary period, "subject to a life interest payable annually to Mrs. Baker," widow of the owner and step-aunt to Pierce, until her death in 1891. He began manufacturing under the name and style of Walter Baker & Company. In 1856 the trustees extended the lease a further eight years, during which time Pierce began an expansion that would eventually absorb his competitors in the Lower Mills. The trustees continued the ten-year lease until 1884, when "all terms under the Walter Baker will having been satisfied, the entire property is conveyed by the Trustees to Henry L. Pierce." In 1860, Pierce bought the Preston Chocolate Mill fromHenry Chapin, to whom it had been sold the previous year, and in 1881, Josiah Webb sold his chocolate mill to Pierce. In 1864, the trustees of the Baker Estate renewed the lease for a second decade. This decade was decisive for Pierce, as he began to enter his chocolate in competitive exhibitions both in this country and abroad. In 1867,Baker's Chocolate and Cocoa won an award in theParis Exposition for the quality of the product. In 1873, the company won the highest awards at theVienna Exposition, and in 1876, at thePhiladelphia Centennial, Walter Baker chocolate and cocoa won the highest awards. With mill managers and mill employees, Pierce was able to expand the chocolate business and build new mills. In 1894, these were equipped with chocolate-making machines, most of which were imported from Germany, that saved power and were easy to attend.

Walter Baker Chocolate never suffered from any labor movements under Pierce's ownership, and he was regarded as a kind and well-paying employer.^[2]

Pierce followed in his father's footsteps and was elected to theMassachusetts House of Representatives from 1860 to 1862, and again in 1866. He was a vociferousRadical Republican. After Dorchester was annexed to the city of Boston on January 4, 1870, Pierce became a member of theBoston Board of Aldermen. Pierce was elected as a Republican to the Forty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death ofWilliam Whiting. He was reelected to the Forty-fourth Congress and overall served from December 1, 1873, to March 3, 1877.

Pierce was asked to run for mayor of Boston by several businessmen after the city had mismanaged a smallpox outbreak and due to a public urge for strong leadership in the aftermath of theGreat Boston Fire of 1872.^[1][2]

Pierce was nominated and elected mayor of Bostonin 1872. He took office in January 1873, and resigned the position on November 29, 1873, to serve in theUnited States House of Representatives forMassachusetts' 3rd congressional district. The remainder of his term (into January 1874) was served byLeonard R. Cutter.

As mayor, Pierce reorganized the Health,Police, andFire Departments in the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1872 and established a smallpox clinic. He successfully had a commission revise the city charter and opened theBoston Public Library on Sundays^[1][2]

Pierce ran again for Mayor of Bostonin 1877 in response to a petition urging him to do so.^[1][2] He again won, and served as mayor from January 1878 to January 1879.

It was during his terms as mayor that Pierce's business began an extensive marketing and public relations campaign to make Walter Baker & Company a household name or, better, the household choice for chocolate and cocoa. In 1883, the company formally adopted the trademarkLa Belle Chocolatiere as its logo. Used earlier in the company's history, this famous design was copied from the pastel portrait ofThe Choclate Girl byJean-Étienne Liotard, an 18th-century Swiss painter. The chocolate girl was to become as famous as the company she promoted. It was not until 1884 that the trustees of the Baker Estate allowed Pierce to purchase the company outright. Once that was done, it was incorporated as Walter Baker & Company, Ltd.

Pierce was honored by the City of Boston when the school committee voted in 1892 to name the new grammar school just south ofCodman Square in his honor. The school was designed by the Boston city architectHarrison Henry Atwood (1863–1954) and was an enormous hammered granite building at the corner of Washington Street and Welles Avenue (now the site of the Codman Square Branch of theBoston Public Library). It was considered one of the most advanced schools in the Boston public school system, and after the Great Depression, its focus became that of a "baking school" which offered trade classes.

During Pierce's ownership of Baker Chocolate Company, from 1854 to 1896, he was to increase business greatly, so much so that he created an urban mill village with modern chocolate mills along the Neponset River. His budget for advertising and marketing was tremendous, but none was more important than the adoption of La Belle Chocolatiere as his trademark. He employed women to dress as the trademark come to life in silk gowns, with crisply starched white lawn aprons, caps and cuffs. They would act as demonstrators at exhibitions and fairs, where they offered samples of Baker's Chocolate to those in attendance. These demonstrators, with comely faces and ready smiles, were an important and appropriate way to advertise his product. An article inThe New York Times on October 21, 1892, reports that these demonstrators were at an exhibition at the Madison Square Garden in New York City, where it was said that the "taste of the chocolate is its own sufficient advertisement, but the combination of chocolate and girl is particularly effective." The article went on to say that at this food show, "one of the most noticeable exhibits of this sort is made by Walter Baker & Co., who occupy a conspicuous place just opposite the main entrance to the amphitheatre. Under a silken canopy, disposed as was the canopy at old Ashby, wherein Lady Rowena watched the conquering arms of the young King Ivanhoe, a cluster of pleasing damsels dispenses the soothing 'tap' of Baker. All are dressed in the costume of 'La Belle Chocolatiere' of Liotard's painting in the Dresden Gallery, made familiar to everybody as the trademark of this old established firm. The soft draperies of the canopy are a pleasing frame for the quaint costumes and brilliant complexions of the chocolate girls, and even rival exhibitors praise the taste shown by the firm in displaying its wares so attractively."

These comely demonstrators, who elicited the praise of even the rival exhibitors at an exhibition, were only one aspect of Henry Lillie Pierce's astute ability to attract attention to his products. In her bookCrowding Memories, Mrs.Thomas Bailey Aldrich, widow of the former editor of theAtlantic Monthly, wrote of Pierce as a close friend to her and her husband. She said that for "nearly twenty-five years…[he had] been one of the most loved of guests at our fireside." Pierce's "deep and unaffected friendship" for the Aldriches was sincere, and they, like many others, benefited from his estate, inheriting his farm at Ponkapoag inCanton, Massachusetts. Mrs. Aldrich summed up his character, saying that he was in all ways a strong man. "Strong in will even to obstinacy, strong in his sense of honor, strong in his love for his friends, strong in his sympathies, strong in his patriotism, strong in his likes and dislikes. To those who knew him best there was a certain charming simplicity in his character because it was the clear and direct product of his nature, unhelped by outside influences."

Later in his life, his sight began to fail. His doctors prescribed that he should spend most of his time outside, so he bought a yacht and crossed the Atlantic thirty-five times, visiting most famous places in Europe at the time.^[1][2]

Pierce died from a cold that struck him with paralysis while on a trip to Chicago on December 17, 1896.^[1][2] His interment was in Dorchester South Burying Ground onDorchester Avenue inDorchester Lower Mills.

Upon his death, Henry Lillie Pierce remembered each of his employees with a gift of $100. His public bequests included one toHarvard that, at the time, was the largest such gift the college had ever received. Pierce also left equal sums to theMuseum of Fine Arts, theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, theMassachusetts General Hospital and the Homeopathic Hospital, and it was said that "not in a long time has there been known such generous remembrances of public institutions and charities as in the provisions of his will."

In 1896, the City of Boston named the intersection of Dorchester Avenue and Washington and Adams Streets in Dorchester Lower Mills "Pierce Square" in memory of Henry Lillie Pierce. Today, few residents of the area know that this is the official name of the Lower Mills intersection, nor are they familiar with the myriad accomplishments of the man for whom it was named.

• Timeline of Boston, 1870s

• United States Congress."Henry L. Pierce (id: P000335)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

• Mayors of Boston
• Republican Party members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
• 1825 births
• 1896 deaths
• Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts
• 19th-century mayors of places in Massachusetts
• 19th-century members of the Massachusetts General Court
• 19th-century United States representatives

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