Izard Co., AR - Biographies - E. S. Pearson

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E. S. Pearson is a member of the mercantile firm of Sanders & Pearson, of
Oxford. Ark., and also of F. W. Pearson & Co., of Thayer, Mo., both of whom
carry a varied assortment of goods, which can not fail to satisfy every want of
their patrons. He was born in McMinn County, Tenn., in 1829, and is a son of
Edmond and Cynthia E. (Hardwick), natives of South Carolina and Alabama,
respectively. The father removed to Tennessee in 1824, where he farmed, in
connection with preaching the Gospel, and for ten years he was an elder in the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1832 he settled in Jackson County. Ala.,
but he afterward moved to Talladega County, where he died in the fall of 1847,
at the age of fifty-two years, having been a minister of the Gospel for
twenty-eight years. He and wife became the parents of the following children:
Charles D. (who died, leaving a family in Texas), F. A. (deceased, left a family
in Mississippi), B. T., F. C. (a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, residing in Texas), F. C. (also a minister of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in Texas, besides engaged in farming), Martha C. (wife of Marion Simmons,
of this county), Cynthia E. (the deceased wife of Carroll White, her family
residing in Mississippi), Mary C. (wife of D. B. White, of Texas), Watson H. (a
Methodist minister, residing in Izard County), and W. W. (deceased, was also a
minister of the Methodist Church, and died in Mississippi, in 1871). E. S.
Pearson was reared on a farm, and educated in the schools of Alabama. Upon
reaching the age of twenty-one years he began farming on land which he owned,
but this work he gave up, on the breaking out of the war, to enlist in the
Confederate service. He joined Company F. under Gen. Forrest, and served as his
commissary for three years, and, in 1865, surrendered at Corinth, Miss. He then
returned to Mississippi, where he had located in 1850, and began farming and
merchandising at Houston, but, four years later, he moved to Lee County, and
engaged in farming. He took up his abode in the State of Arkansas, in 1869, and,
after residing for some time on a farm of 400 acres, he sold out and went to
Newburg, where he was engaged in the mercantile business for three years. From
that time until 1880 he again farmed, and then followed merchandising once more.
He sold this establishment to Garner & Richardson, and up to March, 1889, his
attention was given to agriculture alone. He has since followed merchandising,
and has also managed his farm of sixty-five acres. His home place is also under
cultivation, and in the two enterprises to which he has given the most of his
attention he has met with flattering success, and, besides the income which he
derives from his farm, the sales in his mercantile establishment will amount to
about $12,000. He was married, in 1850, to Miss Ellen Morris, of Pontotoc
County, Miss., and by her he became the father of eleven children, seven of whom
are living: C. Elizabeth (wife of John M. Smith. of Polk County, Mo.), F. W. (a
merchant at Thaver, Mo.), Alice M. (wife of Joseph Harklerood, a farmer of
Fulton County, Ark.), Mary E. (wife of Jasper Rader, of Fulton County), Emma
(wife of W. Martin, a farmer of Izard County), Thomas W. and Josie L. (the
latter two at home with their father). Adolphus L., the eldest child, died in
1883 (he wedded the daughter of Judge Hunter, of Fulton County); W. W. died in
his twenty-third year, in 1876, and two died in infancy. Mr. Pearson was [p.965]
called upon to mourn the death of his wife in 1879, she having been an earnest
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and, in 1880, he wedded Mrs.
Sarah J. (Hancock) McCollough, a daughter of Joel and Sarah (Hall) Hancock,
natives, respectively, of Kentucky and South Carolina. Mrs. Pearson was reared
in Ohio, to which State her father was taken when he was a small boy, and from
this State her father enlisted in the War of 1812. He was a farmer, and he and
wife were the parents of the children whose names are here given: Robert T. (of
Ohio), L. B., J. K., J. H., J. B., J. R., Harriet (wife of Ezra Clark, of
Indiana), and Sarah J. (Mrs. Pearson). Mr. Hancock died in 1863, and his wife in
1875, both being earnest members of the United Presbyterian Church at the time
of their deaths. Mrs. Pearson was first married, in 1848, to Aaron Michael, in
Ohio, soon afterward emigrating to Arkansas, and settling in Jackson County,
where Mr. Michael died, in 1857. In 1874 Mrs. Michael was united in marriage
with William McCollough, who died in 1878. He was a Confederate soldier, and was
with Price on his last raid through Missouri. He was a member of the Baptist
Church, and belonged to the A. F. & A. M. Since 1884 Mr. Pearson has been a
licensed minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, with which church he
united in 1880. While residing in Mississippi, in 1868, he became a licensed
minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Politically, he is a Democrat. Mrs.
Pearson has in her possession a bed-spread, with a double-woven top, in blue and
white, and on the under side is the year (1837) in which it was woven, and also
the name of the weaver, she having herself spun the thread, of which the
bedspread was made, when a girl.