He died on the 21st of October, 1822, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.

RICHMOND PEARSON.

(Condensed from Wheeler’s “Historical Sketches.”)

Richmond Pearson, late of Davie county when a part of Rowan, was born in Dinwiddie county, Va., in 1770, and at the age of nineteen years came to North Carolina and settled in the forks of the Yadkin river.

When the war of the Revolution broke out he was a Lieutenant in Captain Bryan’s company (afterward the celebrated Colonel Bryan, of Tory memory).  After the Declaration of Independence, at the first muster which occurred, he requested some on whom he could rely to load their guns.  When Captain Bryan came on the ground he ordered all the men into ranks.  Pearson refused, and tendered his commission to Bryan, whereupon he ordered him under arrest.  This was resisted, and he was told that the men had their guns loaded.  They then came to a parley, and it was agreed by the crowd, as matters stood, that Bryan and Pearson, on a fixed day, should settle this national affair by a fair fist fight, and whichever whipped, the company should belong to the side of the conqueror, whether Whig or Tory.  At the appointed time and place the parties met, and the Lieutenant proved to be the victor.  From this time the Fork company was for liberty, and Bryan’s crowd, on Dutchman’s creek, were Loyalists.  The anecdote illustrates by what slight circumstances events of this period were affected.  When Cornwallis came south, Pearson, with his company, endeavored to harass his advance.  He was present at Cowan’s Ford on the 1st of February, 1781, where General Davidson fell in attempting to resist the passage of the British.  Captain Pearson was a successful merchant and an enterprising planter.  He died in 1819, leaving three sons and one daughter:  1st, Jesse A.; 2d, Joseph; 3d, Richmond; and 4th, Elizabeth Pearson.  Jesse A. Pearson was frequently a member of the General Assembly from Rowan county.  In 1814 he marched as Colonel of a Regiment to the Creek Nation, under General Joseph Graham, and was afterward elected Major General of the State Militia.  He died in 1823, without issue.

Hon. Joseph Pearson was a member of the General Assembly in the House of Commons from Rowan county in 1804 and 1805, and a member of Congress from 1809 to 1815.  He died at Salisbury on the 27th of October, 1834.  He was thrice married.  By his first wife, Miss McLinn, he had no issue; by the second, Miss Ellen Brent, he had two daughters—­one, the wife of Robert Walsh, Esqr., of Philadelphia—­the other, the wife of Lieutenant Farley, of the U.S.  Navy; and by the third wife (Miss Worthington, of Georgetown), he left four children.