Pearson, George W

PEARSON

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/29/2021 at 23:22:31

History of Warren County, Iowa from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, by Rev. W. C. Martin, Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1908, p.405

GEORGE W. PEARSON
G.[George] W. Pearson is one of the prosperous farmers, stock-raisers and dairymen of Warren County, where he owns a good tract of land of one hundred and twenty acres on section 2S, Lincoln township. It is pleasantly situated, about three miles from Indianola, so that he has a good market for his products. He has lived in the county since 1869, for a period of almost forty years. He was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, near Bull Run, April 2, 1839. His father, Barnett Pearson, was also a native of the Old Dominion and belonged to one of the first families of Virginia, of English lineage. Barnett Pearson was reared in the state of his nativity and after arriving at years of maturity he married Lucy Finch, who was also born and reared in Virginia. Mr. Pearson was a planter there for a number of years, but thinking to find better business opportunities in the middle west, he made his way to Illinois in 1857 and settled in Schuyler County, where lie opened up a farm and reared his family.
G. W. Pearson spent the first nineteen years of his life in his native state and then went with his parents to Illinois, where he assisted his father in developing and improving a new farm. He arrived in Iowa in 1869, coming at once to Warren County, where he rented land and carried on farming for four years. He was married in this comity in September 1871, to Miss Eliza Hewitt, who was born and reared in Indiana and was a daughter of Moses Hewitt, one of the early settlers here. When Mr. Pearson had made some start in the business world, gaining a small capital through his operations of rented land, he made investment in property, becoming the owner of two hundred acres in Otter Township, which he cultivated for three years. He made this a nice place, but later sold and located on his present farm in 1890. He has made extensive repairs and improvements here, has fenced the fields, tilled the land and transformed the farm into a valuable property. Here he has carried on a successful dairy business, being well known for a number of years as a prosperous buttermaker.
Mr. and Mrs. Pearson are the parents of Ralph, who is now a business man of Seattle, Washington; Paul, who is pursuing a medical course in Simpson College; Mabel, who has been engaged in teaching in Watertown, South Dakota, for two years; Bertha, who is a vocal teacher and possesses musical talent of high order, singing for various lyceum bureaus and chautauquas; Minnie, a teacher of this county; and Nellie, at home. They also lost four sons who died in childhood, and who were older than the members of the family above mentioned.
Politically Mr. Pearson is a Bryan Democrat, and keeps well informed on the questions and issues of the day. He has served as school trustee and as a member of the school board, but has never sought office. The cause of education, however, finds in him a warm friend and an effective champion of its interests. Socially he is connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, has served through the chairs of the Indianola lodge and is now a past district deputy. His entire life has been devoted to farming, yet in his chosen field of labor he has displayed energy and ability that have made him one of the prosperous citizens of the community.