Bradford Kinney Peirce (1819-1889) was a Methodist clergyman, born in Royalton, Windsor County, Vermont. He graduated from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1841, and in 1843 entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was editor of the Sunday-School Messenger and Sunday-School Teacher in Boston in 1844-45, and agent of the American Sunday-school union in 1854-56. His efforts in behalf of public charities led to the establishment of the state industrial school for girls in Lancaster, of which he was superintendent and chaplain from 1856 till 1862. He was chaplain of the House of Refuge on Randall's Island, New York, from 1863 till 1872, when he returned to Boston to become editor of Zion's Herald, which post he held until his death. In 1868 he received the degree of D. D. from Wesleyan university, of which he was a trustee from 1870 till 1881. He has also been a trustee of the Boston university since 1874, and of Wellesley College since 1876. His works include Temptation (Boston, 1840); The Eminent Dead (1846); Bible Scholar's Manual (New York, 1.847); Notes on the Acts (1848); Bible Questions (3 vols., 1848); Life in the Woods: Adventures of Audubon (1863); a collection of Hymns and Ritual for the House of Refuge (1864); Trials of an Inventor: Life and Discoveries of Charles Goodyear (1866); Stories from Life which the Chaplain Told (Boston, 1866) and its Sequel (1867); Hymns of the Higher Life (Boston, 1868), A Half-Century with Juvenile Offenders (1869); Chaplain with the Children (1870) ; and The Young Shetlander and his Home (New York, 1870). He prepared, by order of the Massachusetts legislature, a new annotated edition of the proceedings of the State convention of 1788, which ratified the national constitution (Boston, 1856).