Dear List, My relative, Hiram Dwight Pierce, was apparently born in Copake, NY, although someone from The Pierce Project/New England wrote to me in 2004 saying that "all the censuses say Hiram was born in Vermont but anything is possible." Hiram and his wife, Sarah Jane, are buried in the Craryville Cemetery. He was born May 25, 1810 and died May 17, 1866 at Troy, NY. He was the author of a diary titled A FORTY-NINER SPEAKS. According to the internet, the book is "a chronological record of a New Yorker and his adventures in various mining localities in California, his return trip across Nicaragua, including several descriptions of the changes in San Francisco and other mining centers from March 1849 to January 1851. With illustrations by the author Hiram Dwight Pierce. INTRODUCTION (written by his niece, Sarah Wiswall Meyer) Hiram Dwight Pierce was the son of Daniel, who was the son of Ezekiel, who was the son of Timothy, who was the son of Thomas, who was the son of Thomas, who was the son of Thomas, who was the son of Thomas who was born in 1583. Hiram was born on May 25, 1810 in the town of Copake, New York. There were other children, several of them, and Hiram was still a boy when his father died. His mother apprenticed him to a farmer who was also a blacksmith, and the lad's llife was an arduous one. However he learned a trade..." _http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/calbk:@field([email protected](calbk180d iv1_ (mailto:[email protected](calbk180div1) Does anyone on the list know anything about this family? If so, please reply. We have nothing to connect him to the Daniel mentioned in the INTRODUCTION to the diary except family knowledge and documents. Thank you. Virginia [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected])