San Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM R. PEARSON
WILLIAM R. PEARSON was born
in Meade County, Kentucky, on the Ohio river, seventy miles below Louisville,
August 21, 1830, son of John and America (Renfrow) Pearson, both natives of
Virginia. The father, a farmer by occupation, died in 1833. He used also to run
flat-boats down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers; it was on one of these trips
that he was taken sick with cholera and died, while in the State of
Mississippi. Mrs. Pearson afterward married again, and in 1849 the whole family
emigrated to Buchanan County, Missouri, twelve miles from St. Joe. The mother
returned to Kentucky after the death of her husband. Before returning, however,
she spent a year in California; she died shortly after her return to Kentucky.
She was the mother of two children by her first marriage,--S. A. and William
R., both residents of this county, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this
volume. By her second marriage there were nine children, two sons and seven
daughters, five of whom are now living.
William R. Pearson was raised principally
in Kentucky up to 1849, when the family moved to Missouri, where he lived until
1863. April 15, of that year, he started for California, crossing the plains
with ox teams, and arriving in Stockton after four months’ journey. The first
work he did in California was baling hay, at which he was engaged just a week.
He then went down to San Jose, working there off and on till 1854, when he made
his way to Montezuma and worked in the mines a couple of months. He went to
Placerville, prospected there a while, and, not liking the diggings, came down
to Michigan Bar, where he settled down, and was married in the fall of 1855. He
remained there four or five years, engaged all that time in mining. When he
left the mines he came direct to the ranch on which he now lives, in San
Joaquin County. It was a wild place then, covered with brush and timber; he
made all the improvements himself, and it is now one of the best improved farms
in the county. The ranch contains 160 acres situated on Cherokee Lane, section
13, northeast quarter, four miles north of Lodi. Mr. Pearson is undoubtedly one
of the largest and most successful farmers in the county. For the past eleven
years he has farmed 2,000 acres just west of Galt, Sacramento County; for the
same length of time he has been engaged in threshing all through this section
of the county.
Mr. Pearson is a member of the order of
Odd Fellows, which he joined about ten years ago, Phoenix Lodge, No. 239, of
Galt. He is also a member of the Chosen Friends of Galt.
Mr. Pearson’s first wife, Sarah Ellen
Baker, a native of Indiana, died in 1861. She was the mother of three
children,--Seth Allen, William Alfred, and the other deceased. He was married
to his present wife, Mrs. Mary Jane Reddon, whose maiden name was Storry, a
native of Kentucky. They have six children, four daughters and two sons, as
follows: Augusta May, John Walter, America Frances, Peter B., Bertha Eveline
and Susan. Mrs. Pearson had two children by her first marriage,--Nora, wife of
Frank Laning, of Fresno, and Silas H. Reddon.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Page 582. Lewis Pub. Co.
Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Biographies
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
Genealogy Databases