Gad Pierce lived in the town of Niagara in 1813 during the War of 1812. The United States troops frequently occupied his home and stored their arms and ammunition there. They sometimes even used his home as a guard house. The home was occupied by the US troops from the spring of 1813 until December 1813 when the British came and burned it down. Gad and his son, Samuel, fled from the house carrying nothing with them but the clothes on their backs and four feather beds.
How did I learn about Gad and his home? In 1822, Gad gathered witnesses and petitioned the House of Representatives for remuneration of his home and personal property to total $3,080.15. The petition was read to the Committee of Claims and they decided not to grant the renumeration to Gad.
The above report can be found at: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SERIALSET-00086_00_00-033-0032-0000/pdf/SERIALSET-00086_00_00-033-0032-0000.pdf.
Gad’s petition is part of the US Congressional Serial Set. In 1813, Congress felt that they were not doing enough to share what they were doing with the people of the nation. So in 1817, they printed their first Serial Set and they still publishing them today.
You can learn about the Serial Set at: https://www.govinfo.gov/help/serial-set.
How I found Gad’s petition was to conduct a search uses the word Niagara. The Serial Set collection was digitized by the Law Library of Congress.
Search the Serial Set: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/collection/serialset.
Each year, the National Archives has a Genealogy Fair day and in 2016 one of their presentations features the Serial Set. Though access to the set has changed since its recording, you can still learn about the collection.
If you are a Family Tree Webinar subscriber, you can also watch a webinar by Rick Sayre titled The Genealogy in Government Documents that discusses the Serial Set. Similar to the above YouTube video, access to the Serial Set is outdated, but learning about the collection is still valuable.
I conducted a search on the FamilySearch Family Tree for Samuel Pierce in Niagara County with a father named Gad Pierce and I believe that I found them. According to the tree, Gad is actually Gad Pierce, Jr. You can find his profile at: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KNDB-KP9.
I uploaded the Serial Set report to Gad’s memories on the FamilySearch Family Tree. According to a bio taken from Find a Grave, Gad “owned a tavern at the “Y” intersection of Main, Portage, & Pierce, of which Pierce Avenue had been named in his honor.”
I’d love to hear if you find any of your ancestors in the Congressional Serial Set! Give it a shot and share your finds: Jeanette@jeanettesgenealogy.org.
