E. T. Peirce’s road to Deadwood was circuitous. Born April 24, 1846, to Quaker parents, Joseph and Prudence (Blackburn) Peirce in Lancaster County, PA, he attended Millersville Normal from 1860 to 1862.
He studied physiology, psychology and biology, which seems to be the nearest he ever got to studying anything connected to the medical field, yet he became known as “Doc” Peirce.
The nickname “Doc” seems to have come from his compassionate nature, as he provided aid and comfort to others.
Though raised a Quaker, Peirce had three Union Civil War enlistments, one in Pennsylvania, and two in Missouri.
The Black Hills
Peirce first landed in Custer, Dakota Territory, when he arrived in the Black Hills in the spring of 1876. By June, the gold rush was on at Deadwood, Peirce moved to Deadwood with the rest and the town of Custer was deserted.
Peirce was a self-made tonsorial artist and like most barbers of the era, a multi-tasker. Peirce put up a little shack building, provided a beer keg for a chair, and opened his barber shop. In addition to cutting hair, he was sometimes asked to perform surgery, doctor the sick, or prepare a body for burial.
On August 2, 1876, “Doc” Peirce was called upon to make Wild Bill Hickok ready for his final resting place after Hickok was murdered in Deadwood.
Peirce later wrote to William Hooker, “I was undertaker to Bill, and I want to say, in all of the dead men I have handled, he was the prettiest corpse I ever saw—the blood having run out of him so quickly, he looked just as if he was a wax figure.”
With a housing shortage in Deadwood, Peirce returned to Custer, where he established a free clinic for two years. Once the Custer County Sheriff’s office was established in April 1877, Peirce was appointed to a position of deputy. At election time in the fall, he was elected sheriff.
After serving until April, he resigned to move to Rapid City and became the manager of the International Hotel. Peirce lived in Rapid City for eight years during which time he was again a deputy, then was elected sheriff of Pennington County in 1880.
In 1883 on July 3 Peirce married Ires E. (Ella) Williams and they had one daughter, Ethel, born November 11, 1884.
Hot Springs
Peirce moved to Hot Springs in 1886 and eventually resumed barbering. His shop was located across the river from the Evans Hotel. During the years 1919 to 1925 Peirce wrote a column, “Old Time Trails,” for the Hot Springs Star, as shown here in a March 13, 1919, piece:
A Wild Night, By Doc Peirce
I see by the papers that Brigadier General Egan, the noted Indian fighter, is dead, which recalls to memory scenes of forty years ago.
In 1876 Egan was captain of K Company, 2nd U.S. Cavalry and was stationed at Fort Laramie. In May of that year, May’s Bull Train was surrounded and attacked by the Sioux on the Black Hills Trail. The “whackers” stood them off until dark, when a young boy mounted a horse, sneaked through their lines and rode to the fort for aid.
Egan with his company of forty men came back with the boy, and next day the Indians, when they saw the White Horse cavalry coming, started on the run for Red Could agency, which is now Crawford, Nebraska.
Egan escorted the train to Custer City. When the citizens of Custer heard the solider were coming, they prepared for a grand reception. The Merchant Hotel was being built on Crook Street, frame up and roof on but not boarded up. Volunteers were called for and we all went to work and soon had it enclosed.
The bar was made small in front, so the boys could drink in relays and fall back… Over the bar in evergreen letters were the words, “Welcome to Captain Egan and White Horse Cavalry.”
I was delegated to search for ladies for dancing partners. After scouting the town, we were one shy, so I was told to go again and not to stop on account of age, looks, color or previous condition of servitude. Going up to the end of Custer Avenue, I found some new arrivals, a man and wife. The man said he could not leave but told his wife to put on her glad rags and go.
We took the middle of the street, and she sure proved herself to be an elocutionist. We had only two blocks to go but in that time, she gave me her life’s history; daughter of an English clergyman, had eloped to America when quite young, then deserted, and all the sob stuff so often heard these days.
When we reached the hotel, I trailed her through the bar into the ball room and announced my acquisition. Captain Egan was awarded the honor of the first dance, and as they glided down the hall, they were fair to look upon. She was in full “war paint,” and the ball room was lit up by her presence; in fact, she looked in that motley group like a diamond in a lignite setting.
Between dances the boys would go out to the bar, gaze in the mirror and chew cloves, and long before day-break the runway between the ball room and bar room was cluttered up with those had fallen with fatigue.
Captain Egan had forty dollars, and his boys borrowed it all, for, they said, as he couldn’t pay for anything, he didn’t need it. Someone asked the captain why he stood for their work.
“Those are my boys,” he replied. “And those forty men were all I had when we charged the Village of Crazy Horse last March. They would follow me through Hades; why should I deny them a small favor?”
Only forty-three years ago, and yet I know of only three men now living in the Hills who were there that night: Captain C.V. Gardner, Joe Marty and the writer. The boy who made that wild night ride to Fort Laramie was afterward the first sheriff elected in Fall River County and is still one of our honored citizens—Joseph Marty.
--E.T. Peirce
In later years Peirce also had an active correspondence with old friends, George Stokes, Bill Hooker, and Clark Stocking, in which they reminisced about the old days. Peirce died on August 13, 1926, and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Hot Springs.
Peggy Sanders can be reached through peggysanders.com
