Though J. R. Pearson is not family, I find it often useful with immediate family history to get a better picture when we know not only what was going on with immediate and extended relations, but also with neighbors, and the Pearson family resided beside Addie McKenney McWhirt for many years in Osage Indian Territory then Osage County, Oklahoma.
Joseph Pearson was married to the Osage-French Rosa Lee DeNoya, born 1863, died 1914, daughter of Francis DeNoya and Martha Lessert, Martha Lessert a daughter of Julia Roy, sister of Mary Louise Roy and John Baptiste Roy.
Living beside Addie’s brother, George W. McKenney, was Laura Revelett, b. 1886, the daughter of Frederick “Frank” Revelett and Emma Frances “Fannie” Davenport, Frederick a son of Pierre Carbaneau Revelett and Mary Louise (Marie Louise) Roy, sister of John Baptiste Roy, French-Osage, who married an Ioway-Osage woman.
While Rosa was a grand-niece of John Baptiste Roy, the above Laura was also a grand-niece of John Baptiste Roy and is of interest as the McKenneys are possibly related through an Ioway connection.
Additionally, in 1875 Addie McWhirt McKenney (Rosa’s neighbor and member of our family) was in the household of a David Robb and Mary Ross after the death of her Ioway mother. Robert Moore, a brother-in-law of Mary (who also moved to Chautauqua County), had as his great aunt , Margaret Mitchell Berry, who was married to Joseph P. Dunham. Daniel Dunham, a son, was married to Martha Lessert, mother of Rosa Denoya Pearson, about 1874. That’s a far-fetched connection but it’s never-the-less, a connection.
J. R. Pearson. In the development and improvement of the old Osage country, J. R. Pearson has for thirty five years supplied the important elements of individual enthusiasm and enterprise. He has spent most of his active career in this part of Oklahoma, and has had unusual opportunities for judging the country and for participating in its affairs, and there Ib probably no citizen of Pawhuska who is considered more vitally and substantially related with local development than Mr. Pearson.
Born in Andrew County, Missouri, February 29, 1852, he has had a life of varied experience beginning with boyhood. His parents were William Madison and Delilah (Hunter) Pearson. His father was born in Kentucky, but was reared in Missouri, the grandparents having settled as pioneers in the northwestern quarter of that state. Grandfather Nathaniel Pearson died in Northern Kansas at the age of ninety and William M. Pearson passed away May 30, 1912, at the age of eighty-nine, in Maryville, Missouri, and both had spent all their active careers as blacksmiths. Mr. Pearson’s mother, who was born in Missouri of’a pioneer family, died when her son was four years of age. The latter is now the only one living out of a family of four girls and two boys, and there were also two sons by his father’s second marriage.
When he was thirteen years of age J. R. Pearson left home on account of incompatibility with his step-mother, and thenceforth largely made his own way in the world. He lived a few years with his older sisters and then rambled from place to place, paying his way by day or monthly labor, largely engaged in railroad work in different sections of Missouri.
It was in 1878, while still in search of a permanent home, that J. R. Pearson arrived in the Osage country. Here, on July 4, 1878, he married Miss Rosa Denoya, who was born in Washington Territory August 26, 1864. She died at her home in Pawhuska, January 26, 1913, at the age of forty-nine. She had come to Indian Territory with her parents in 1873, and received her education in the government schools. Her parents were Francis and Martha (Tessett) Denoya, her father a fullblooded Frenchman and her mother of part French and part Osage stock. Her mother died at Pawhuska May 23, 1913, in her eighty-fifth year, and it is said that she was the mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-great-grandmother to more children in the Osage tribe than any other living woman. She was twice married, the father of Mrs. Pearson having died about twenty-seven years ago.
In order to support his wife, Mr. Pearson for several years after his marriage worked at wages of fifty cents a day, but soon engaged in ranching and stock raising, and has lived continuously in what is now Osage County with the exception of a few years spent at Cedarvale, Kansas, where he was giving his children the advantages of the local schools. He and each of his children now have allotments of land amounting to 657 acres each, and he is one of the large property holders over Osage County. Besides his land he is a stockholder in the Pawhuska Oil and Gas Company, the largest corporation operating in that industry in Osage County; is also a stockholder in the oil and gas company bf which J. W. Stroud is president; is a stockholder in the Citizens National Bank of Pawhuska. For a number of years he has also carried on an individual business as a money lender.
In 1908 Mr. Pearson erected what is considered one of the most attractive homes in Pawhuska, known as Pearson Heights, adjoining the city limits at the southwest corner. The house is itself a commodious and attractive one, and stands on a site that commands an extensive and beautiful view not only of the city, but of a large scope of surrounding country. The house is surrounded by 120 acres of well improved land, and that is the center of Mr. Pearson’s continued interests in the stock business. He still keeps a large number of horses, and has some especially fine strains represented in this class of stock.
In politics he is a republican. In Masonry he has been through both the York and Scottish Rite branches as far as he could go, and was one of the first men in the Osage country to take the thirty-two degrees of the Scottish Rite Consistory. He is a member of the Consistory at Guthrie and the Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Oklahoma City, and belongs to the various other branches represented at Pawhuska. To Mr. and Mrs. Pearson were born .a large family of eleven children: Claude, who died at the age of four years; Cartona, who died at seven years; October, who lives at Pearson Spur in Osage County, and is married and has five children; Delia, who died at the age of six years; Madeline, wife of Robert E. Wynn, living in Osage County, and the mother of four children; Cordelia, wife of Frank R. Kent of St. Joseph, Missouri, and the mother of two children; Lillian, wife of J. P. Compehaver of Independence, Kansas, and the mother of one child; Bertha, wife of Grover Badey of Osage County, and the mother of two children; Catherine V., Joseph W. and Rosa V., all living at home with their father.
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