Pearson, Thomas

  • From Loyalist Directory profile notes:
    • Pearson was a proud loyalist. A plantation owner in South Carolina and an officer in the British provincials during the American revolution, moved with his family to Nova Scotia in 1784 and settled eventually in Truro, a township he would represent in the House of Assembly from 1806 to 1818.
    • Thomas Pearson was born in South Carolina and was forced to become a loyalist refugee twice! His father John Pearson was the owner of a 300 Acre plantation, and also a crown surveyor in Charleston South Carolina. He is credited with building the first British-American fort on the Tennessee River in 1750. John died in 1775. Upon the onset of the Revolutionary war, his young son Thomas was among the first to join the Royal Militia under Colonel Fletcher in South Carolina. Thomas rose to the rank of Colonel in the Loyalist Forces. With the defeat of the British forces in the Carolinas, many Loyalists were establishing themselves in East Florida and he received a land grant 150 miles inland from St. Augustine, Florida. The climate in Florida did not suit Pearson (along with the fact that Florida was granted to Spain in a treaty of 1783). He became very ill with fever, and in 1784 decided to leave his first refugee home, along with his young wife Martha. Together they sailed for Nova Scotia and settled in Rawdon, where he received a land grant. He and Colonel Zachariah Gibbs were the two ranking militia leaders during the organization of the settlement in Rawdon. He was very successful and became a Justice of the Peace and county treasurer. Colonel Thomas Pearson and Martha had six children. I am the descendant of their daughter Rachel, who married Thomas Ingersoll Brown. Thomas Pearson died in 1818 and was buried in Truro, Nova Scotia.
  • Proven Loyalist in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=6477
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/116429654/thomas-pearson