Abel Head "Shanghai" Pierce, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetAbel Head "Shanghai" Pierce
American businessman
Date of Birth: 29-Jun-1834
Date of Death: 26-Dec-1900
Profession: rancher
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Cancer 
About Abel Head "Shanghai" Pierce
- Abel Head Pierce, known as Shanghai Pierce (June 29, 1834 – December 26, 1900) was a Texas rancher.
- He was born in Little Compton, Rhode Island and was a direct descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, with nine generations in between.
- He was related to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, U.S.
- President Franklin Pierce, and Thomas Wentworth Pierce, builder of the Southern Pacific Railroad in Texas. At the age of nineteen, "Shanghai" stowed away on a ship in the New York harbor.
- He worked for his passage and arrived in Indianola, Texas, five months later without money or a job.
- He went to work for W.
- B.
- Grimes as a ranch hand.
- By shrewdness, hard work, and rugged determination he became an authority on cattle while working for Grimes.
- How Pierce acquired the name "Shanghai" is a matter of speculation.
- J.
- Frank Dobie reported that it was due to Pierce's resemblance to a banty Shanghai rooster: long-legged and short-panted.
- Wharton County folklore holds that the name resulted from his ruthless business dealings.
- Pierce died on December 26, 1900.
- Pierce, Texas is named for him.In 1871, Charlie Siringo worked on Rancho Grande, owned by Shanghai Pierce and Allen.
- Siringo wrote that the ranch, "at that time was considered one of the largest ranches in the whole state of Texas.
- To give you an idea of its size, will state, that the next year after I went to work we branded twenty-five thousand calves-that is, just in one season."In 1912, Siringo visited Deming's Bridge-Hawley Cemetery to see Shanghai Pierce's 40 foot tall, $10,000 bronze statue.
- Siringo wrote the statue was "as natural as life," and he could hear Shanghai's voice, "which could be heard nearly half a mile, even when he tried to whisper."
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