San
Joaquin County
Biographies
STITH A. PEARSON
Prominent among the early-day
residents of Waterloo who will always be held in loving remembrance, as they
were in their lifetime in high esteem, first on account of their high ideals,
and secondly because of their years of hard work, self-denial and sacrifice to
see those ideals realized, was the late Stith A. Pearson, who passed away on
April 13, 1922, about one month after he had celebrated his ninetieth birthday,
from injuries sustained in a fall of fifteen feet from his windmill. He was born in Meade County, Kentucky, on
March 1, 1832, and at the age of eighteen left the home place and engaged in
boating upon the Mississippi River, so that tales of his varied and sometimes
thrilling or amusing experiences with the river craft and river folk of that time
were his delight in after years. He was
a witness to a good deal in the seamier side of life, and in particular to the
ravages of several of the cholera epidemics which swept New Orleans and the
lower Mississippi nearly a quarter of a century ago.
In 1851, Mr. Pearson left for
California with six head of oxen, and arrived at Stockton in 1852. He remained here a few months, and then left
for San Jose; and after a short season of work there, he went to Michigan Bar,
where he mined for two years. Buying a
team, he freighted to Virginia City; and when he returned to Stockton, he
worked as a farmhand for Cole and Dodge, big wheat farmers on the Lockeford
Road, beyond the Calaveras River.
On June 3, 1859, Mr. Pearson married
Miss Susan Willis, also a native of Kentucky, and they then made their home on
the farm seven and one-half miles out on the Waterloo Road. Mrs. Pearson, whose notable character and
charming personality always attracted to her a circle of devoted friends,
preceded her husband to the grave in 1913, dying on April 12; and when Mr. Pearson
came to breathe his last, he too passed away on the twelfth day of April. Their farm home was purchased from Captain
Weber, and was a very desirable one in many respects; and Mr. Pearson became
both a successful general farmer and a noted lover of, and breeder of horses,
in early days raising many of the best horses in the community.
Mr. Pearson was one of the oldest
members of Valley Lodge No. 135, A. F. & A. M., and was an ardent Mason,
whose life reflected the ideals of his fraternity. Two sons and three daughters survived
him: Charles B. and Jesse W. Pearson are
both of Stockton, as is Mrs. P. W. Owen, in maidenhood Nellie Pearson; while
Juanita Pearson became Mrs. Henry Harney of Lodi. Miss Violet Pearson still resides at
Waterloo. Two of Mr. Pearson’s sisters
also survive. One is Mrs. Amanda Owens,
of Porterville, and the other Mrs. Mildred Collins, who lives at Farmersville,
near Visalia. The late W. R. Pearson of
Lodi, who passed away in 1920 at the age of eighty-nine years, was Mr.
Pearson’s brother.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
987-988. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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