How she met Pierce, a young lawyer with political ambitions, is unknown, but her brother-in-law Alpheus S. Packard was one of Pierce's instructors at Bowdoin. Franklin, aged almost 30, married Jane, aged 28, on November 19, 1834, at the home of the bride's maternal grandparents in Amherst, New Hampshire. Theirs was a small wedding, conducted by a brother-in-law of Jane, the Reverend Silas Aiken. The couple honeymooned six days at the boardinghouse of Sophia Southurt near Washington, D.C..
Jane Pierce's husband was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives by the time they married, and became a U.S. Senator in 1837. She hated life in Washington, D.C., and encouraged her husband to resign his Senate seat and return to New Hampshire, which he did in 1842. Service in the Mexican-American War brought him the rank of Brigadier General and local fame as a hero. He returned home safely, and for four more years the Pierces lived quietly at Concord, New Hampshire, in the happiest period of their lives, where they watched their son Benjamin "Benny" grow up.
In 1852, the Democratic Party made Pierce's husband their candidate for president. She fainted at the news. When her husband took her to Newport for a respite, eleven-year-old Benny wrote to her: "I hope he won't be elected for I should not like to be at Washington and I know you would not either." But the President-elect convinced his wife that his office would be an asset for Benny's success in life.
The Pierces apparently had genuine affection for one another, but quarreled often and gradually drifted apart. She opposed his decision to run for president, for she much preferred private life. When their son Bennie was killed in a train accident before the swearing-in, she believed God was displeased with her husband's political ambitions. After the deaths of her children, Pierce was overcome with melancholia and distanced herself during her husband's presidency. She never recovered from the tragedy.
For nearly two years, she remained in the upstairs living quarters of the White House, spending her days writing maudlin letters to her dead son. She left the social chores to her aunt Abby Kent-Means and her close friend Varina Davis, wife of War Secretary Jefferson Davis. Pierce made her first official appearance as First Lady at a New Year's Day reception in 1855 and thereafter served as White House hostess intermittently.
She died of tuberculosis at Andover, Massachusetts, on December 2, 1863. She was buried at Old North Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire, and her husband was also interred there beside her in 1869.
On November 19, 1834, Pierce married Jane Means Appleton (1806–63), the daughter of Jesse Appleton, a former president of Bowdoin College. Jane was Pierce's opposite. Born into an elite Whig family, she was shy, whereas he was very extroverted. Often ill, she was deeply religious and pro-temperance.[16] They lived permanently in Concord, New Hampshire. They had three children, all of whom died in childhood:
Franklin Pierce, Jr. (February 2, 1836 – February 5, 1836)
Frank Robert Pierce (August 27, 1839 – November 14, 1843), died at the age of four from epidemic typhus
Benjamin Pierce (April 13, 1841 – January 6, 1853), died at the age of 11 in a railroad accident.
None of the sons lived to see his father become president. Benjamin's death occurred after his father's election, but before his inauguration.
Benjamin Pierce (April 13, 1841-January 16, 1853) - Two months before Franklin Pierce's inauguration as president, a tragedy occurred as the family traveled by train from Andover, Massachusetts, to Concord, New Hampshire, where they had planned to attend the funeral of a family friend. Minutes after departure, their passenger car broke loose from the train and rolled down an embankment. The only fatality was Bennie Pierce.