Pierpont family.

The Pierpont family traces its history in the United States back to 1640, when the Hon. John Pierpont and his wife, Thankful Stowe, settled in Massachusetts. There they purchased three hundred acres in Roxbury in 1656. Their son, James, attended Harvard, and later went on to become one of the founders of Yale College where he lectured to the students as a Professor of Moral Philosophy. His great grandson, Rev. John Pierpont, was born in 1785 in Litchfield, Connecticut. Educated at Yale, John Pierpont received his call to the ministry later in life after two failed careers--one as a lawyer and the other as a retail dry-goods businessman--were behind him. He was ordained minister of the Hollis Street Church in 1819, and served in that position for more than twenty-five years. During that time, he became well-known as a poet and an author of a popular series of school textbooks. His daughter, Juliet Pierpont, married Junius Spencer Morgan in 1836. His son-in-law and grandson, John Pierpont Morgan, formed a financial dynasty that surpassed any other of its day.