As a youth in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Jerathmiel Peirce was trained to become a leather dresser.  When the Revolution broke out, Peirce joined a volunteer company of the militia.  After the Revolution, Peirce returned to leather dressing and began a business in Salem.  The success of the leather dressing business enabled Peirce to buy a one-sixth share of the ship Friendship.  Through his involvement with the Friendship, Peirce met Aaron Waitt and together they decided to open up a shipping firm of their own.  

This trading firm that Peirce and Waitt formed soon became one of the largest traders with India in all of the United States.  Peirce gained considerable wealth from his endeavors as a trader, thus he had the means to purchase the parcel of land on what is now Federal Street in Salem on which he built the Peirce-Nichols House.(1) 
 

1. Gerald W. R. Ward,  The Peirce-Nichols House (Salem: Essex Institute, 1976), 6-10.