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Capt. Pearson was one of the soldiers of the Mexican War; he was mustered in Co. "A," First Illinois regiment, of which his uncle, William Weatherford, was lieutenant-colonel, at Alton, July 4th 1846. From Alton his regiment went to New Orleans; thence to Matagorda bay in Texas; was stationed a month at San Antonia de Bexar, and in the fall of 1846 moved into Mexico at Presidio. They were afterward stationed at several points in Northern Mexico for some months, and took part in the battle of Buena Vista in February, 1847. In that fight he was wounded, a ball carrying away a piece of bone from his ankle. They remained at Buena Vista till June, 1847, by which time the war had closed; he was mustered out at Camargo, on the Rio Grande, and reached home July 7th, 1847. This was not Capt. Pearson's first experience at soldiering; he had enlisted when only a boy, in a company of volunteers which left Ohio to take part in the Black Hawk War; on reaching Vincennes, Indiana, news reached them of the closing of the war, and they returned home; he also took part in the Mormon war at Nauvoo in Hancock county. His first wife died in February, 1848. He was married in the spring of 1849 to Mrs. William Little, formerly Miss Rebecca Gwin, sister to his first wife. Capt. Pearson has had six children; Elizabeth, who married Frank Johnson, and died in Missouri in February, 1879; Elias, who died in 1855 at the age of eighteen; Rebecca, now the wife of Edward Huddleston of Gillespie township; Martha Ann, who married Nelson Pope of Dorchester township; Mary, now Mrs. Robert Drury, of Brushy Mound township; and James M. Pearson, the youngest son, who is farming in Brushy Mound township. In politics Capt. Pearson is a democrat, and voted first for Van Buren in 1836. He was first lieutenant of the company of volunteers raised in Ohio for service in the Black Hawk war; he was first elected drum-major, and then promoted to wagon-master in the Mexican war, and everybody familiarly know him as Captain. He had no capital with which to begin life, and how has a farm of 200 acres in Gillespie township, and owns 640 acres in Missouri, of which 400 are under cultivation. He is now one of the oldest citizens of Gillespie township.