Cyrus Peirce

Cyrus Peirce
Cyrus Peirce 1790-1860
Born	August 15, 1790 Waltham, Massachusetts
Died	April 5, 1860 West Newton, Massachusetts
Resting place	Nantucket, Massachusetts (Prospect Hill Cemetery)
Education	Harvard University
Occupation	Educator
Known for	Founding president of first state normal school, now Framingham State College
Spouse(s)	Harriet Coffin
Children	none

Cyrus Peirce (1790–1860), American educator and Unitarian minister, was the founding president of the first American public normal school, which evolved into Framingham State University.

Cyrus Peirce (originally pronounced "Purse," but now usually as if it were spelled "Pierce') was born on August 15, 1790 in Waltham, Massachusetts, the twelfth and last child of Isaac Peirce and Hannah Mason Peirce, his wife. He went to Framingham Academy before going to Harvard. During his sophomore year in the winter of 1807-1808, he began teaching in nearby West Newton.

After receiving his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1810, Peirce went to Nantucket Island to take charge of a private school there, but after two years there, he returned to Harvard in 1810 to start divinity school, which he completed in 1815. He then returned to Nantucket where he resumed his teaching career.

On April 1, 1816, in Nantucket, Cyrus Peirce married Harriet Coffin, (born June 26, 1794), the daughter of William Coffin, II, and Deborah Pinkham Coffin, his wife. They had no children.

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.

In 1831, Cyrus Peirce returned to Nantucket and opened a "School for Young Ladies." In 1832, fourteen-year-old Maria Mitchell, who later became a well-known astronomer, became one of his pupils. She 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 (later called president) of the first public normal school in the country.