Abel Head "Shanghai" Pierce

Abel Head “Shanghai” Pierce (or Pearce – the two spellings seemed to be interchangeable in the area) was born in Little Compton on June 29, 1834, the son of a blacksmith. His parents, Jonathan and Hannah Phillips Head, lived on Willow Avenue, and he was the sixth of their ten children.  He attended Little Compton one room schools for a while, then was sent to serve an apprenticeship with his uncle, Abel Head at his General Merchandise business in St. Petersburg, Virginia.  A few years later, bored with this job, he stowed away on a schooner in New York harbor.  When discovered he was put to work handling cargo.

The ship arrived in Indianola, Texas five months later, and Shanghai went to work as a ranch hand, splitting rails for W.T. Grimes near the Colorado River.  Grimes, at the time, was the largest cattleman on the gulf coast.  Abel began his acquisition of cattle by investing his first year’s salary in cattle. Unbeknownst to Abel, the cows Grimes sold him were culls. He paid $14.00 a head for them, when the picks of the range were $7.00 a head. It was a severe winter, and none of Abel’s cattle survived.  Grimes took great joy in teaching the “Yankee” a lesson, but he would eventually learn a very expensive lesson from the same Yankee related to high finance and longhorn cows.

It is thought that he was given the nickname “Shanghai” because he was so tall and lanky people thought he looked like a Shanghai rooster. Shanghai was a giant of a man; his dress and manner were unusual for the times.  He wore brocaded vests, monogrammed shirts, and broad-brimmed, high-peaked hats. And let’s just say, he was not a shy man, and very taken with himself. He once bragged that he owned “nearly all the cattle in Christendom once.” Legend has it that Shanghai’s voice was so loud he could be heard a ½ mile away, even when he was whispering.  His sister, Miranda, would be mortified when he arrived for a visit, and she had to take him to church.  In his “whisper” he once asked her at a funeral if there was “going to be any mince pie after the service!”

Abel and his brother Jonathan both joined the Confederate Calvary, serving under Colonel Augustus C. Buche, a German born soldier of fortune who emigrated to the Republic of Texas in 1845 and sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War.  At the end of the war, the Pierce brothers returned to Texas to find their holdings had been sold for Confederate money!  Such irony!!  They continued in the cattle business, branding on the open range.

He and his brother organized the very successful Rancho Grande partnership in 1871.  A few years later he married Fanny Lacey, who was the daughter of one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and they had one child.  When mother and child both died, Shanghai converted everything he owned for gold and went to Kansas for 18 months.

Shanghai married Hattie James in 1875, and they had a daughter, Mary Frances.

When he returned to Texas he began buying land, ultimately acquiring an impressive amount of prime ranchland.  He established the Pierce-Sullivan Pasture Company, which sent thousands of cattle up the northern trails. According to Wikipedia, “the community of Pierce was originally called Pierce’s Station in 1881.  The New York, Texas, and Mexican Railway built a track 91 miles long, which traveled from Richmond to Victoria across the upper section of Abel Head “Shanghai” Pierce’s land.  He gave them permission to build if he could choose where to build depots to load cattle. Despite the railroad building one near his home, Shanghai then built one himself, at his expense.  Since it was located close to the geographic center of Wharton County, he encouraged residents to make Pierce the county seat. In March of 1894, 160 acres of land were divided into sixty-four blocks, 240 feet square for the townsite.  When the streets were donated to the public, a courthouse, a park, and a cemetery were built.  A post office was established in 1886, and the community’s name was changed to Pierce in 1895. Forty people were living in Pierce in 1890. Shanghai wanted another railroad track to be built from Eagle Lake to Bay City, which would be on the west side of the Colorado River and would travel through the community to make it a crossroads community, but it did not happen. He also built a 3-story hotel which failed. It was eventually knocked down in 1980.  Shanghai then built a church and some houses for the people who worked for him.  There were six livestock brokers, several stores, a gin, and 50 people living in Pierce in 1892. From 1914 to 1926 the population grew to 100 and Shanghai’s nephew, A.P. Borden, was the mayor of the community.  The population further rose to 150 in the 1940’s and the community had five businesses.  The majority of the homes in the community were gone by 1980.  The population declined from 125 in 1967 to 49 two years later. The Texas Department of Public Safety and the Warton County Youth Fair were housed in Pierce for a short time with Precinct No. 4 serving as the county commissioner’s headquarters.  A grocery store, post office, and church were located there, with the population remaining at 40 from 1990 through 2000.”

Shanghai dabbled in banking and railroad ownership, and lost more than $1.25 million in the Galveston hurricane of 1900, in bank failure, and in the purchase of the Gulf Island Railroad.

Abel traveled to Europe in search of cattle that would be tick resistant, as he thought the blight that affected cattle on the Gulf Coast was due to a tick-borne illness. He was ultimately convinced that the Brahmans from India were the answer, but he died on December 26, 1900, without know he was 100% correct.  He was responsible for the Brahman cattle being imported to the United States, which formed the base stock for all Brahmans.

Shanghai commissioned sculptor Frank Teich to create a marble statue of himself. A 6’5” likeness was eventually placed atop a ten-foot granite pilaster which was then mounted on a ten-foot piece of gray granite.  This structure marked his gravesite long before he died, so he’d have time to appreciate it!

Shanghai was related to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as well as U.S. President Franklin Pierce, but he became a legend unto himself, one of the most colorful cattlemen Texas ever saw!

Shanghai Pierce is one of the people from Little Compton’s past featured in L.C 350’s 2025 calendar!  Learn about Shanghai’s calendar mates: Bertrand Shurtleff, Maggie Bodington, Richard Paull, Warren Nickerson, Manuel Camara, Edward Bowen, George and Joseph Goulart, Lewis Rogers, Chester Wilkie Sr., Alice Bullock, and Ida Wilbur. The calendar may be ordered from the website LC350TH.com or purchased in person at the LC350 store in the Brownell House.