Charles Wesley Piercy

Charles W. Piercy (1833-1861), California Democratic politician, and Assemblyman, that as a Douglas Democrat was killed in a duel with a Southern Democrat Assemblyman Daniel Showalter in the last political duel in California.

Charles Wesley Piercy, was born, in Decatur County, Iowa, on June 11, 1833 to Nathan Piercy and Elizabeth Scott Piercy. He came across the continent to California in 1852, in a small party one of whom was Daniel Showalter of Pennsylvania, but when they arrived in California they went their separate ways. Piercy settled in El Monte and in 1858 joined with others there in purchasing and reselling the lands of Mormons returning to Utah at the time of the Utah War. Allied to those interests he was elected Sheriff of San Bernardino County in 1859. Piercy resigned in Oct. 1860 to run for a seat in the State Assembly.

In the bitterly contested campaign of 1860, Charles W. Piercy was nominated for member of the 1st District of the California General Assembly by one party, and W. A. Conn the incumbent, by the other. Piercy was elected, but there was a claim of fraud. The accusation was that polls at Temescal, maintained by a resident named James Greenwade, kept open shop for three weeks and that whenever candidate Piercy was in need of more votes, they were furnished from this precinct. The case was taken to court, where the two opposing lawyers, H. M. Willis and Bethel Coopwood, had a fight in court wherein Coopwood sustained a slight wound, but won the case. Piercy won his seat as a member of the 1861-62 California State Assembly, representing California's 1st State Assembly District.

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