FOURTH GENERATION

21. Doctor Abel Lawrence PEIRSON was born on 25 Nov 1794 in Biddeford, ME. He entered Harvard College as a sophomore 1n 1809 and graduated in 1812, not yet 18 years of age. He went on to study Medicine at that same institution where he was a favorite pupil of Dr. James Jackson. In 1814, near the close of the war of 1812, Abel wanted to become the surgeon on a "fine privateer." His father staunchly refused his son's request saying that "privatereering is a mean and pitiful mode of carrying it on against defenseless merchantmen." Abel abandoned the project, continued his studies and received his MD from Harvard in 1815.

He began the practice of medicine in Vassalboro, ME, but stayed there less than a year and a half. In early 1817, Abel moved to Salem, MA.where he spent the rest of his life. Salem was not only a considerably larger town with the professional contacts he wanted (about this time Salem was the 6th largest city in the country and had the 2nd largest per capita income), but it was also the home of influntial relatives on his mother's side. Although his specialty was surgery, Abel wrote a paper on the Salem measles epidemic of 1821, and in 1824 received the Boylston Prize for an essay on "chin-cough." In 1832 he interrupted his career to seek additional training in Paris and other cities in Europe. Consequently he became one of the first American physicans to become acquainted with Laennec's methods of exploring the chest for physical signs of disease. (The originals of his papers and letters from the European trip reside in the Boston Medical Library, The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine).

In 1839 he received an appointment as Consulting Physican to the Massachusetts General Hospital. A conversation there in 1846 with Dr. Charles T. Jackson about the anesthetic properties of sulfuric either changed the course of his professional career. On October 16, 1846 he was one of the observers of the first use of either as an anesthetic in the "either dome" of Massachusetts General Hospital. Abel was one of the first physicans to use either outside that hospital's walls and a month later on November 14th, in Salem, removed a fatty tissue with complete sucess. (Family ledgend has it that he experimented on an Irish maid). On November 19 he did the amputation of an arm and could hardly believe that the patient experienced no pain. During the last years of his life, Abel probably performed more surgical proceedures than any other physican in Essex County.

Abel was a Fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the President of the Essex South District Medical Society, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In May 1853, he went to a meeting of the American Medical Society in New York City. He never came back. A special train carrying Doctors returning to Boston ran through an open draw bridge at Norwalk, CT and he was drowned. He was 59 years old. He died on 6 May 1853 in Norwalk CT. He was buried in Harmony Cemetery, Salem, MA.

He was married to Harriett LAWRENCE (daughter of Captain Abel LAWRENCE and Abigail PAGE) on 18 Apr 1819 in Salem, MA. Harriett Lawrence was Abel Lawrence Peirson's first cousin. Sarah Page Peirson was Abel Lawrence Peirson's mother and her sister Abagail Page Lawrence of Medford and Salem, MA was Harriett's mother. Harriett Lawrence's father was Captain Abel Lawrence of Salem. Harriett LAWRENCE was born on 4 Jul 1793 in Salem, MA. She died on 13 Nov 1870 in ?? -- probably Salem, MA. Doctor Abel Lawrence PEIRSON and Harriett LAWRENCE had the following children:

+31 i. Doctor Edward Brooks PEIRSON.
32 ii. Abby Lawrence PEIRSON was born on 30 Jul 1821 in Salem, MA. She died on 20 May 1903 in Salem, MA.
33 iii. Abel Lawrence PEIRSON Jr. was born on 24 Jul 1824 in Salem, MA. He died on 30 Aug 1871 in ?? -- probably Peabody, MA. He was educated in the public schools in Salem and for a short period was a supercargo on a vessel. He was later engaged in the leather business in Peabody, MA. On 22 July 1847 in Salem, MA he Married Elizabeth Treadwell Sutton, (b. 1822, d. 1892), daughter of General William Sutton and Nancy Osborne. They lived in Peabody, MA. They five children:
*Annie Osborne (b. 17 Jul 1848, d. 24 Nov 1929) m. Price Weatherall Hasbrouk of NYC (b. 27 Dec 1841, d. 27 Apr 1901), Anne Osborn & Price Hasbrouk had three children:
Elizabeth Lawrence (b. 1872) m. Oakley Delameter;
Lawrence (b. 2 Jul 1873 ) m. (1st) Francis Reed and (2nd) Florence Reed - her sister:
Harold (b. 11 Jun 1877. ) m. Mary Scott;
Abel Lawrence PEIRSON Jr. (cont.):
*Hariett Lawrence (b. 1853, d. 1873) m. Caleb Caller of Peabody, MA or Hamilton, Ontario;
*Mary H. (b. 1861) who in 1903 was unmarried in Essex Falls, NJ; but could be the Mary Peirson Butler of Pennacock, NH who had no children;
*Elizabeth (died in infancy);
*Abel Lawrence (II) (b. 24 Apr 1869 in Peabody, MA) who on 12 Oct 1896 married Mary Langmaid Perkins of Salem, MA (daughter of Frank A. Langmaid and Caroline L. Ives). He started work as a clerk in Boston and later became a partner for a leading stock brokerage in New York and lived in Essex Falls, NJ. Abel Lawrence and Mary Perkins had four children:
Abel Lawrence (III) (b. 3 Aug 1897 in S. Orange, NJ);
Rebecca (b. 5 Aug 1901 in E. Orange);
Charles Lawrence (b. 3 Jan 1903 in E. Orange);
Elizabeth (b. 12 Aug 1908 in Essex Falls).
34 iv. John Lawrence PEIRSON was born on 22 Dec 1826 in Salem, MA. He died on 19 Oct 1829 in Salem, MA.
35 v. Sarah S. PEIRSON was born on 22 Dec 1826 in Salem, MA. She died on 25 Dec 1829 in Salem, MA.
36 vi. Harriett Lawrence PEIRSON was born on 29 Sep 1831 in Salem, MA. She died on 7 Jun 1880 in ?? -- probably Andover or Cambridge, MA. She Married Reverend William Ladd Ropes of Andover, MA. They had one child:
James Hardy Ropes m. Alice Lowell. They had two children:
Harriett (Hadda) Ropes Cabot;
Edward Lowell Ropes who was the father of Ann & Nina Ropes and Sally Ropes Hinkle.
37 vii. James Jackson PEIRSON was born on 15 Jan 1834 in Salem, MA. He died on 19 Dec 1847 in Salem, MA.
38 viii. General Charles Lawrence PEIRSON was born on 15 Jan 1834 in Salem, MA. He died after 1915 in ?? -- probably Boston, MA. He graduated from Harvard in 1853, and received an honorary degree from that institution in 1898. He began work as a civil engineer with the Erie Railroad surveying their route in western PA. He later held other engineering positions in Boston and Minnesota.

During the Civil War, on July 27, 1861, he joined the 20th Mass Infantry Volunteers as Adjutant. On Oct 21, 1861 he was captured in action at Ball's Bluff VA and spent 3 months in a Richmond, VA prison before being exchanged on about Feb 1, 1862. He was discharged from the 20th Mass Infantry in Sept 1862 in order to accept an appointment as Lieutenant-Colonel of the 39th Mass Infantry. Serving with that regiment, in May 1864, he suffered a minor wound in the chest at the battle of Laurel Hill, VA. On Aug. 18, 1864 he received a gunshot wound in the right groin while in action at Weldon Railroad, VA. He never returned to his regiment, and although as a result of these wounds he was deemed unfit for further duty, on Nov. 23, 1864 he was promoted to full Colonel, to date from Aug 19, 1864. Because the date of his recovery was remote, he was honorably discharged Jan 4, 1865. On March 13, 1865 he was breveted to the rank of Brigadier-General for "gallant and meritorious conduct in the battles on the Weldon Railroad."

He moved to Boston in about 1866 where he formed a partnership with General Robert Stevenson as a "dealer of iron." Later he became a director and officier of several banks and manufacturing institutions. On 19 July 1873 he Married Emily Russell (b abt 1830), the daughter of George Robert Russell of Boston. She died on 7 June 1908, they had no children.

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