 |
This Is Our Free KJV Bible Download Page |
|
Who is this woman? This is Jane Means Appleton Pierce. She was the First Lady of the 14th President of the United States, Franklin Pierce. She is a forgotten figure amongst First Ladies. Just ask anyone, "Who was the 14th President?" and you will most likely get a blank stare. |
Write up by Liaf
We offered the free on-line book Judah's Sceptre/Joseph's Birthright by J. H. Allen that we compared to as the "Bible" of the Lost Tribes teaching. Now, since the KJV Bible is public domain (free of copyright restrictions like Allen's book), we thought we offer the KJV Bible in HTML format with links for easy browsing. In addition, this is a red-letter edition of the Words spoken by our Lord. Another feature is that it also includes the Apocrypha! Otherwise, this is a no-frills electronic Bible. If you want to do a word or phrase search for example, all you have to do is a Ctrl F to bring up the search box and then you can type in the word or phrase you want to locate--- that feature is already built into windows. The download and install instructions are at the bottom of this page.... but before you go there, what does this have to do with Jane Pierce?
Both my brother (Morfessa) and I want you to have the Bible, but the pictures of Jane were my idea. It is out of respect for her that I placed her pictures up there. She wanted the Word of God spread everywhere. Before I state those details, let's just go over her life a little. Jane was born March 12,1806 and died December 2, 1863 (making this the 140th anniversary of her death). The Pierces were considered natives of New Hampshire where they are buried although they both lived various places in New England. Over 30 years ago when I was young, I remember having a picture chart of all the First Ladies with a small write up about each. For some reason, Jane's picture made the most lasting and spellbinding impression on me and I jokingly said that her image "haunted" me off and on ever since. There seemed to be something from another world about her, and as you read on you will see my intuition was correct. Later on when I discovered her birth date, ol' Liaf here laughed and said, "Oh, She was born only a few days after my birthday--- another March baby. That explains her good looks!" Funny as that may seem, the humor ends there, for you see, she was not a happy woman--- she suffered from what they once called melancholia (depression) and "consumption" (TB). She is a typical example of the type of woman the world wants to forget. Why is that? She was pretty and sweet, albeit a soft-spoken and frail girl (about 5'4" and probably never above 100 lbs.). Some even called her "weak-willed", a position that I personally do not agree with for reasons I will state later. Her Father was a Congregational minister and President of Bowdoin College (Maine) where our 14th President Franklin Pierce attended. Being from a very strict, almost puritanical upbringing, Jane was sometimes described as a nervous and religious fanatic. That's why the world wants to forget her. Such "weak", "nervous", and "religious" people don't appeal to them. Franklin on the other hand was very outgoing and hung around in taverns--- a great, fun, and charismatic guy that even ol' Liaf here probably would have hung out with had I lived in his day. He was very handsome and sociable. Unfortunately, his drinking lead to alcoholism, a battle Jane often had to put up with. This seemed like a very unlikely match, although I believe they were truly devoted to each other.
 |
Franklin Pierce was a young, handsome President, not like those previous presidents who looked like old cronies. He was a sociable and fun guy to be with but his drinking lead to alcoholism. What could he have there in his coat? |
Jane wanted Franklin to leave politics (the details which you can research for yourselves) and practice law. She detested politics and when unfortunate incidents happened, she blamed Franklin's involvement in politics. You see, she had three boys, all which eventually died long before ever reaching adulthood. The first one died only a few days after being born, her next one died at only 4 years of age from typhus. This was not unusual in those days, albeit tragic nevertheless. Because of the deaths, she was overly attached to her last son, Benjamin, affectionately referred to as "Bennie", but he was killed tragically (I'll get to that shortly). Meanwhile, Franklin promised not to be involved any longer in congressional politics, but in spite of the way the history books state it, I can't help but to imagine him saying to Jane one day, "Oh, by the way, I've been nominated as a presidential candidate for the democratic party! Geez... I really wanted to get out of politics and keep my promises to you but they all like me and I can't help it!" I'm being a little ridiculous here, but in effect, that is what happened. Things just "worked out" that way.
After "Handsome Frank" as he was sometimes called was elected President by a landslide, but before he was sworn-in that coming March as President, the Pierces were traveling by train from a family funeral in Andover when their train car derailed. The axle broke, the car swung around and down a rocky ledge. There were no casualties except for young 11-year-old Bennie who was killed before their eyes. Out of respect, I will not even admit to the gory details other than to say poor Jane witnessed something far worse than any horror movie can show. Jane was devastated and could not be comforted. She sought the Lord in all things trying to make, shall I say, cosmic sense of everything. She then concluded that this was God's way to free Franklin up so that he could be President without distractions while leading this great nation. This in turn, placed a great guilt-trip on Franklin where his friends and associates noticed he was not his old, happy self but rather sunk deeper into depression and more drinking. This placed a terrible pall on his administration and what started as a popular President ended his administration with much criticism, especially since this nation was on the brink of civil war--- he was not renominated again but left in shame (and thus a forgotten President).
Jane was in no position to act as First Lady when they entered the White House. Rather, she changed the decor to all black and retreated to mourning while her friend and aunt by marriage, Abby Means, took on the duties. (Jane was known to write letters of apology to all her dead children while in her isolation and carried locks of their hair with her calling them her 'precious ones'.) One reason I believe that this woman did not have a weak will was because she had this uncanny ability to make others feel her presence--- she could not be seen anywhere, but became known as the "shadow in the White House". The second important reason to mention was that both she and Franklin were strict Sabbatarians. When she was physically able (for she had physical illnesses as well), she would go to church services and make all the others go as well! Even President Pierce's private secretary wrote, "Many a time have I gone from respect to her when left to my own choice I should have remained in the house." After church, she'd ask them about the sermons to make sure they paid attention! That's right Jane, get them all off their tushes and out to worshipping the Lord--- I like that. Her depression lifted somewhat after two years in the White House and made more appearances, but still had a woeful look on her face enough to take the joy out of others seeing her. For reasons unknown to many, she later observed the Congressional debates regularly (remember, she supposedly hated politics). A third reason I believe she did not have a weak will was because although many believe her presence at the debates may have been because of her strong stand against the slavery issue (so that she would become educated about what was going on), my opinion was I think she may have believed her presence there could have acted as a way of keeping things in check. Everyone there knew her strong religious convictions and adamant positions against slavery. Maybe it was a way of "shaming" them, I don't know and remember that's just my opinion. She was very highly thought of at the time; a woman of great intellect, refinement, and spirituality. Not that I am any graphology expert, but I dabbled a little into it. I really believe you can detect the major personality traits of a person. Seeing her writings, she came across to me in the same manner as a highly sensitive, spiritual and emotional albeit an extremely intelligent (and even quick-thinking) individual. But she was over-shadowed by her severe depression and losses making her appear "weak-willed" when she needed to lean a lot on others.
Although she and Franklin spent their latter years touring many places in the world, including the Bahamas and Europe seeking a cure for her TB, eventually the illness overcame her. When she made out her last will, the first things she dealt with were contributions relating to the Christian faith. She donated to missions and the American Bible Society because she wanted the Word of God spread.
Yes Jane, as the book Judah's Sceptre/Joseph's Birthright is associated with the honored Mr. Allen; it's only fitting to associate our spreading the Word of God with you. If ol' Liaf were alive when Jane was, we may not have agreed on everything, and I don't pretend to speak on her behalf, but somehow I think we could have had many a good conversations (she loved talking about such topics and loved literature) and maybe eased her pain somewhat. But we all know she's in a much better place now (and I believe along with Franklin and her boys) waiting that glorious day of the revealing of the sons of God! Oh, one other thing. As with many presidents and famous people, she too had direct lineages to royalty! So, besides her interesting life, and her devotion to the Word of God in which we are honoring her, I find it quite interesting that she also fits the lineages relating to what this site is about!
OK. Now for the download--- the link is marked at the bottom. The file is in Zip format so you will need a standard zip utility program on your computer to unzip it (If you do not know what that is, then I would take some time to educate yourself about it now. You do not know what you are missing. A zip file can take many files and convert them into ONE. That's a great way to send many pictures as only one file to family or friends. Also, a zip file COMPRESSES lots of data. This zip file is 2 megabytes, but it would be 8 megabytes if it's left unzipped).
1. Since this is 2 megabytes, allow about 20-25 minutes for download for you unfortunate folks with dial-up yet. Select a folder to save it to (desktop is fine).
2. Create in your C: drive a folder to extract the 82 files to. May we suggest kjvbible? Then extract the files.
3. On your desktop, right click for a new shortcut (or wherever you want to put it) and for the "command line" copy and paste this bold command: C:\kjvbible\contents.htm provided that's what you named your folder, otherwise put in the name of your folder instead.
Then title it anything you want, e.g. KJV BIBLE CONTENTS and hopefully not "Mickey's girls fun place" unless you are trying to get your heathen friends saved (and out of respect, leave Jane Pierce out of it)!
That's it! You are now ready to go! The content page helps you navigate to any book of the Bible easily without having to 'guess' the file name book of the Bible in the folder you created.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD OUR KJV BIBLE
CLICK HERE TO OPEN THE "READ THRU THE BIBLE IN A YEAR" CHECKLIST