Franklin Pierce Homestead
- Address: 301 2nd New Hampshire Turnpike (NH 31)
- Vicinity: Franklin Pierce Hwy, 3 mi W of Hillsborough
Franklin Pierce, fourteenth President of the United States, held office during one of the most critical periods (1853-57 ) of the antebellum generation. Under his administration, the apparent calm on the slavery issue produced by the Compromise of 1850 gave way to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, "Bleeding Kansas, " and the renewed sectional storms which resulted in the Civil War. Of the extant residences associated with Pierce, the one most typical of his time and background and also the one which he occupied for the longest period is the Franklin Pierce Homestead. Located at Hillsborough Lower Village in New Hampshire, this 2-story frame and clapboard house with hipped roof was built by Franklin's father, Benjamin Pierce. The future President was born about the time the Homestead was completed in 1804 and lived there until his marriage in 1834.The Franklin Pierce Homestead remained in the Pierce family until 1925 when it was donated to the State of New Hampshire. Restored in 1945-50 and again in the early 1960s, the Homestead is open to the public from nine to five daily (except Sunday) from the third week in June through Labor Day. - NRHP, December 1976