Christopher Pearson

• Birth Notes
  • Ullock, County Cumbria, England.

• Death Notes
  • Death: Apr 19 1711 Ullock in parish of Dean and County of Cumberland.
    Will: 17 MAR 1711 Dean Parish, Ullock, Cumberland, England.
    
    The will of Christopher is as follows:
    
    "I Christopher Pearson of Ullock in the parish of Dean and County of Cumberland being weak in Body yet perfect in mind and memory doe therefore make my last Will and Testament in manner as followeth -First I commit my spirit to God and my body to be buryed at the discretion of my Executors hereafter named and as to the Settling of that small estate it hath pleased the Lord to lend to me I give and bequeath the same as followeth that is to say: I give to my son Peter Pearson one shilling in full of my personnell estate haveing preferred him before: I give to my loveing wife Ellinor twenty shillings and one Bedding of Cloathes and a Bedstead in the Back left. And all the rest of my Goods and Chattells moveable and unmoveable I give and bequeath to my
    son John Pearson whom I make sole executor of this my last Will and Testament he paying and discharging my Debts legacies and funerall Expenses. In witness whereof I have hereunto this my last will set my hand and seale this seventeenth day of March Ano Domi. "
    
    Christopher signed his own will, which was executed 10 May 1711 and was witnessed by Christopher Pfearson, John Bowman and John Wilson.

• General Notes
  • Christopher Pearson owned his own farm and followed a rustic life similar to that of his forebearers. Lived during the
    English Revolution. Also in the religious ferment of the seventeenth century, a more liberal Christian sect arose in
    England, the Society of Friends, more commonly called the "Quaker" faith, founded by George Fox. There was no official ministry among the Friends; each congregation tended to its own spiritual and temporal needs, while certain inspired people served as missionaries and teachers. If they had meeting houses they held their church affairs there, if not, they would hold services at a Friend's house.
    
    Religion: Quaker; Pardshaw Crag, Cumberland County, England
    "A History of Perquimans County, NC" includes a small "bio" on a Pearson family.
    
    Children:
    
    1. PETER PEARSON b: 21 FEB 1675/76 in Dean Parish, Ullock, Cumberland, England
    2. Mary PEARSON b: APR 1671 in Dean Parish, Ullock, Cumberland, England
    3. Sarah PEARSON b: NOV 1673 in Dean Parish, Ullock, Cumberland, England
    4. John PEARSON b: 1677 in Dean Parish, Ullock, Cumberland, England
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    The following information on Christopher Pearson and his immediate family and background is quoted from Jonathan K.T. Smith's "Genealogical Memoir: The Pearsons" (1974), found in the Tennessee State Library and Archives at Nashville, Tennessee:
    
    Where did the Pearsons get their clannishness (and they were that until a generation or so, ago)? Their thrift? Their more liberal outlook, especially in religious matters? Some of the readers may have been unaware that our Pearsons, in the long-ago, were members of the Society of Friends, more commonly known as the Quakers. We have need to return to England, now, and from there trace down to our ancestor, John Pearson (1781-1847) (from whom Jonathan K.T. Smith's branch of the Pearson family descends).
    
    It is in the north of England, that land of great beauty and vast topographical variety--Cumberland County in the famed Lake District. Its mountains and crags, lakes and rivers have made it a favorable region to visit for many generations. By report, by and large, the climate thereabout has been temperate for centuries, favoring the people who have lived there. Sheep and cattle have roamed the Cumbrian hills from time out of mind.
    
    Perhaps if we are a bit romantic, we would agree with Margaret Irwin when she wrote that "The blood of our fathers calls us back to the windswept moors of Cumberland." Family pride drew me back there, in June 1968, when I was touring England, solo; the occasion afforded me the opportunity to get an understanding of the old Pearson habitat. My parents, Herschel and Dorothy Smith, visited this area, including the Dean Church, where our ancestors worshipped hundreds of years ago; spoke with its vicar and his wife and walked in the church and adjacent graveyard, in mid-March 1974, during their English trip.
    
    Our Pearson Fathers appear among the obscure multitude of the Yeomanry whose simple names begin to appear in the few-kept records of Cumberland late in the Middle Ages. For sure, their lives were hard and crude, but they survived in a harsh environment, that created by nature and man.
    
    For generations, our forefathers worshipped with varying degrees of devotion, in the venerable stone church of St. Oswald's in the Parish of Dean, Cumberland; which stands yet of an age upwards of 800 years. A general renovation of this modest chapel was made in the first half of the 15th century; otherwise, it stands basically as it has these long centuries. Time and again, the Pearsons bequeathed their souls to Almighty God and their bodies to the earth in the churchyard of St. Oswald's (Their wills repose among the Deanery of Copeland wills in the Lancashire Record Office).
    
    In 1972, it was my good fortune to engage the services of an excellent genealogist, Miss Anne Johnson of Carlisle, Cumberland, England, to search the ancient registers of that county for references to our Pearson and Fearon ancestors. She was able to implement what I had known of the Pearsons, extending the search to 1580, showing that these two families had long been associated with one another, freeholders in the Parish of Dean.
    
    Our first ancestor who manages to emerge from the mist of time, was John Pearson of Ullock, farmer in Dean Parish. By 1641, he was a church-warden and overseer of St. Oswald's ("Prostestation Returns, 1641, From Cumberland.") The old yeoman made his will in January 1649, requesting that his remains be buried in the parish churchyard. Evidently he had paid for the education of a grandson, Christopher Pearson, who was 20 pay 20 shillings to the parish school for his part in the old man's estate that he was to inherit. He was also to inherit his grandfather's "husbandry geare," i.e. farming tools. John Pearson was dead in 1650, when his will was probated.
    
    Unfortunately Christopher Pearson's father died while young and even his given name is unknown to us. However, his mother, Elizabeth, died in October 1678, leaving a will that lends an insight into her way of life. There is no question that she was a devout Christian, as she commended her "soule unto the hande of Almighty God my maker and to Jesus Christ my only Saviore and Redeemer hopeing through his mercie to have free pardon of all my sins." She left to her son, Christopher and his wife, Elinor, a great barrel, probably some article of furniture, and "my best undercoat." To her daughter, Isabella Oyes, she left "a new coate"; to daughter, Dorothy, "three pounds the rest of my goods and chattles both moveable and unmoveable"; etc. She remained an Anglican to the last of her life.
    
    However, at least Christopher Pearson and his family and Dorothy Pearson embraced Quakerism. The latter died, a spinster, having lived with her brother's family, in 1695. She wasn't indigent as her will indicates; she made several bequests to kith and kin, including 4 pounds money and some furniture to Christopher Pearson. She even made provision for the "victualls" (food) to be served at the time of her laying-out and funeral.
    
    George Fox introduced his Gospel to the Cumbrian folk, in 1653; from that time forth his Society grew there. The traditional belief in Goid and Jesus Christ were retained within the Friends' theology and it was held that the Holy Spirit was to be manifested within each worshipper's mind. One of their early thinkers put it this way, "That the mind was moved, by an inward principle to love God as an invisible incomprehensible Being, by the same principle it was moved to love him in all his manifestations in the visible world." (John Woolman)
    
    The early Friends were avidly democratic by comparison with other sects of the day; they became a liberal force in political as well as religious affairs. They early espoused the causes of public education and anti-slavery; emphasized the well regulated life.
    
    There was no official ministry among the Friends; each congregation tended to its own spiritual and temporal needs, while the more dedicated persons served as missionaries and teachers. In their meetings, silence reigned, until someone felt the need or inspiration from the "inner light" to speak before the group. From the very beginning, the Friends kept excellent records of their membership, including vital statistics, "sufferings," membership transfers, etc. By so doing they lent posterity a generous means in the understanding of themselves as a religious people and as ancestors.
    
    To the north of Ullock, a village in south-central Cumberland, was a limestone hill called Pardshaw Creg, a beautiful formation; from there a broad view might be had of the countryside. Here the Cumbrian Friends held their outdoor meetings. ("The History of Pardshaw Meeting and Meeting House," by Margaret Irwin, 1917, pages 8-9)
    
    The first meeting-house at Pardshaw Crag was erected in 1672; an adjacent graveyard expanded with the remains of the faithful dead as the centuries passed.
    
    Christopher Pearson married a Quaker girl, Elinor Fearon, in Richard Faucett's house in Eaglesfield, about 2 1/2 miles north of Pardshaw Crag, on June 9, 1670. (Friends's House, London: Quarterly Meeting of Cumberland and Northumberland: Digest 311, page 165) She was a daughter of George Fearon, whose headstone is the oldest standing at St. Oswald's (1687), bearing this inscription, "Under this stone George Fearon's corpse doth lie, sleeping till waked by the Archangel's cry." In his 1685 will, Fearon bequeathed ten pounds to his son-in-law, Christopher Pearson. "I desire yt my body may be buried in ye churchyard of Dean." (There is record of one Adam Fferron--the name means blacksmith--near Cockermouth, close by Dean, in 1333, as a taxable in a levy ordered by His Majesty, King Edward III).
    
    Christopher and Elinor Pearson continued to live in Ullock and abided well as members of Pardshaw Crag Meeting. They had four children to live, viz. Mary, wife of John Gill of Eaglesfield; Sarah, who died young; John Pearson, whose descendants continued to live in Cumberland; Peter Pearson (February 21, 1679-1735), our forebear.
    
    The Friends' record states that Christopher Pearson died in Ullock and was buried April 19, 1711 (presumably at Pardshaw Crag); Elinor Pearson was buried on May 2, 1714. His will read:
    
    "I Christopher Pearson of Ullock in the parish of Dean and County of Cumberland being weak in body yet perfect in mind and memory doe therefore make my last will and testament in manner as followeth-
    
    First I commit my spirit to God and my body to be buryed at the desecretion of my executors hereafter named. And as to the settling of that small estate it hath pleased the Lord to lend to me, I give and bequeath the same as followeth, that is to say: I give to my son Peter Pearson one shilling in full of my personell estate haveing preferred him before: I give to my loveing wife Ellinor twenty shillings and one bedding of cloathes and a bedstead in the back loft. And all the rest of my goods and chattells moveable and unmoveable I give and bequeath to my son John Pearson whom I make sole executor of this my last will and testament, he paying and discharging my debts legacies and funerall expenses..." (Signed with his own signature, the will of Christopher Pearson was probated May 10, 1711.)
    
    The old man had given his younger son, Peter, money with which to emigrate to the New World, in 1707, quite an undertaking at the time; parting must have been quite painful for it was with the realization that it would be a final farewell.
    
    Aft. 1653, became Quaker when George Fox preached in Cumberland.
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Click here for details of Christopher's family with Elinor Fearon

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