The Pearsons: History of NW of NE Vienna

For 40 years in the 20th century, the Pearson family owned land within the area that is just to the northwest of northeast Vienna and is today bounded by Beulah Road to the east, the Vienna Town line to the south, the W&OD bike trail to the west, and Clarks Crossing Road to the north. This post refers to this area as “the study area.”

Frances Whiting Pearson was born in January 1849 in Fairfax County to Robert Pearson and Nancy (Ann) Follin, of the “Follin Lane” family. Frank—sometimes “F.W.”—was the sixth and final child for Robert and Ann, according to the Ward family tree on Ancestry.com. Robert Pearson was a blacksmith. Ann Follin was one of at least 17 children sired by Vienna notable John Follin in John’s first marriage, according to “A Genealogical History of the Follin Family in America” (which has a photo of Ann on page 94). (One of John Follin’s sons from the second marriage later recounted that this first marriage resulted in 21 children, but he didn’t know the names of the other four. The second marriage produced nine children, bringing John Follin’s total with amazing wives Catherine Sandford and Mary Barker to an astounding 30 children). Among the fascinating details of John Follin’s life: he was a Revolutionary War veteran and a prisoner-of-war of the British for three years. According to Arlington National Cemetery, he is the only Continental Navy veteran buried at the cemetery.

As for Frank Pearson: his parents, Robert and Ann, bought a 159-acre parcel about two miles north of Vienna the same month he was born in 1849. In relation to today’s Four Corners intersection of Old Courthouse, Beulah, and Trap roads, this parcel would constitute the northeast corner. The parcel’s boundaries include today’s Chapel Hill, Carters Grove, Coral Ridge, and Ridge at Wolf Trap subdivisions, and probably portions of Symphony Meadows and Chathams Ford (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: The property belonging to Robert and Ann Pearson, the parents of F.W. Pearson. The boundaries are superimposed on a map from the Fairfax County Map Wizard.

Within months of Frank’s birth and the land purchase, misfortune struck the family. Robert Pearson died of “fever” at age 37. In 1850, Ann sold off the northwestern quarter of the Four Corners land in a transaction that appears to have been directed by the courts. In 1855, Ann remarried. Charles Carroll, a farmer, was now Frank’s stepfather.

Early in the Civil War, Frank’s oldest brother died in service to the Confederacy. Frank himself served in the Confederate Army, according to the Follin family history, published in 1911, and the 1910 census. Presumably Frank’s participation was at the very end of the war; even in the conflict’s final months in 1865, he would have been a young soldier at 16.

In 1866, soon after the war’s end, Ann lost the remaining 116 acres of the Four Corners property because she was delinquent on her Fairfax County property taxes for 1863 and 1864. In 1870, however, Frank and his surviving siblings bought the land back. At the time, he appears to have been living with his mother and stepfather, “without occupation,” judging from 1870 census records.

Frank became busier after that. In 1871, he and his fellow heirs to the Robert Pearson estate divided up the Four Corners property as their mother ceded her rights to the land (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 shows the partition of the Robert Pearson property among his heirs, with the northernmost lot going to F.W. Pearson. Point A on the plat, marking the southwest corner of the Robert Pearson property, corresponds to today’s “Four Corners” intersection of Beulah, Trap, and Old Courthouse roads. Paynes Road, on the southern boundary, is now known as Trap Road. Point B, on the southeastern corner, is where Trap Road now turns to the northwest, passing by the Barns of Wolf Trap. Where McDaniel Road terminates on the plat at the property’s western boundary is today where Trap Road turns to the northeast to cross the Dulles Toll Road and pass through Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. The road labeled as Old Courthouse Road on the plat is today the portion of Beulah Road leading from Four Corners in the direction toward Meadowlark Gardens.

Over the next 17 years, Frank was involved in several transactions buying and selling pieces of the Four Corners property. In 1872, Frank married Caron Alice Pearson. As the identical last name would suggest, Frank and Caron were related. They were first cousins. Their fathers were brothers and their mothers were half-sisters. Specifically, their half-sister mothers were products of grandfather John Follin’s two marriages. Frank’s and Caron’s brother-fathers were the sons of William Pearson by his first marriage. Thus Frank and Caron had the same maternal and paternal grandfathers, John Follin and William Pearson, and the same paternal grandmother, a Miss Fish (see Figure 3). (William Pearson’s second marriage was to a daughter of John Follin, thus the paternal step-grandmother for Frank and Caron was also their aunt!)

Figure 3: Frances and Caron Pearson’s immediate ancestors.

Frank and Caron Pearson had three children, all daughters. Florence Rosetta was born in 1873, Ada Frances in 1876, and 11 years later, Artie Belle in 1887. The Pearsons also had a child who died in infancy, according to the Follin family history.

In 1901, Frank and Caron sold the 27 acres that they had retained from the Robert Pearson estate. (A few years before, they had transferred three of their 30 acres to daughter Ada and her husband). Frank and Caron had lived on this tract, which included a farmhouse. They received $3000 in the transaction. Frank then purchased 105 acres from the Van Riswick sisters, Avarilla Lambert and Martina Carr, subjects of the previous post in this series. This “certain tract of land, adjacent to and on the north west side of the incorporated town of Vienna, Virginia,” was on the west side of Beulah Road. Today, what had been the Pearson 105 acres holds the following subdivisions (generally from south to north): Beechwood 1, Concord Green, Butler, Bennett Kiln, Talisman Court, Embassy Court, and Beulah Terrace. Vienna’s Northside Park also sits on the former Pearson property (see Figure 4). Pearson paid $2100 for the property. He borrowed $500 at six percent for a three year term to help pay for the purchase, pledging the 70 acres closest to the Town line as the collateral.

Figure 4. F.W. Pearson’s 105 acres and the corresponding subdivisions of today. (Note that Northside Park actually falls within the boundaries of the Town of Vienna).

As of the 1880 census, Frank Pearson’s occupation was a farmer. By the 1900 census, however, he was a carpenter, and that remained his occupation for the remainder of his working life. In 1903, Frank was “engaged in completing the interior of his …new residence,” according to the Fairfax Herald. In 1907, the Herald ran an item on Frank in its “Local News Briefly Told” column: “Mr. F.W. Pearson, residing on the Beulah Road…continues adding to, and improving his homestead, which is already one of the attractions of the neighborhood.” Some twenty years later at his death, it was as a “carpenter and builder” that Frank’s occupation was identified on his death certificate.

Various Fairfax Herald items in the 1910s and 1920s give a sense of Frank’s activities, but much less for Caron. As of 1911, Frank was a steward in the Fairfax Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He remained active in the church until the end of his life. In 1914, Frank and Caron hosted the widow of William Clark (the namesake of Clark’s Crossing and the subject of a future post) for a social event. As of 1918, Frank was a registrar for the county, for which he was paid $6.50. Frank served on a Fairfax County Circuit Court grand jury in 1926 that returned several indictments, including one for murder. In the last few years of his life, he continued to participate in activities of Marr Camp, an organization of Fairfax County Confederate veterans. As of 1927, Frank was one of just 16 remaining veterans in Marr Camp.

Frank Pearson comes to us firsthand over a century later with a letter to the editor in the Fairfax Herald. In August 1914, Virginia was within weeks of a statewide vote on whether to ban the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors—“Prohibition” at the state level. The Herald devoted a page to publish the opinions on the matter by county citizens. Here is Frank:

“I hope all of our people will rally to the right side of the great moral question involved in Statewide prohibition and vote for it, as I expect to do. F.W. Pearson.”

In the meantime, soon after Frank and Caron bought their land in the study area in 1901, they partitioned this land for the benefit of their three daughters (see Figure 5). In 1903, they conveyed the northern and southern portions of their property, 30 acres each, to two of their daughters. For themselves they retained the center portion, as well as the wooded land along the W&OD. The boundaries of these divisions are discernible in the property lines of today. Eldest daughter Florence Rosetta Pearson Cockrill received the land next to the Town Line. Today this land constitutes the Concord Green, Beechwood 1, and Butler subdivisions. Middle daughter Ada Frances Pearson Hummer received what is today the Beulah Terrace and Embassy Court subdivisions. The deed for the transfer to Ada includes boundaries in relation to “the line of the lot intended for Artie Belle Pearson,” indicating that the Pearsons envisioned their residual parcel would eventually go to their youngest daughter. In 1907, Frank and Caron sold to Archibald Kenyon the 15 acres closest to the railroad. Today, this land constitutes much of Vienna’s Northside Park.

Figure 5: F.W. and Caron Pearson subdivided their land for the benefit of their three daughters, two of whom ended up owning the intended properties.

The Pearsons did more than provide land for their daughters. Frank also built houses for Florence’s and Ada’s families on their parcels. “Mr. F.W. Pearson is doing much for the Beulah neighborhood,” reported the Fairfax Herald, noting that he was “putting up two very nice houses for his sons-in-law” (see Figure 5.5).

Figure 5.5 shows the three houses that Frank Pearson built for his family on Beulah Road in the early 20th century. At the time of this photograph, Ada continued to live in her house with her husband, son, daughter-in-law, and grandson.

One example of Frank’s work probably remains. Florence’s house is the yellow farmhouse that still sits on Beulah Road, adjacent to Sideling Court, judging from the County’s property tax records (see Figure 6).

Figure 6: Florence Pearson’s former house sits on the west side of Beulah Road just to the north of the Vienna Town line. It is the oldest surviving house in the area bounded by Beulah Road, the Town line, the W&OD bike trail, and Clarks Crossing Road.

Ada’s house was the farmhouse that remained on the west side of Beulah Road to the south of Abbottsford Drive until circa 2011 when it was torn down to build the Embassy Court III subdivision (see Figure 7).

Figure 7: F.W. Pearson built this house for his middle daughter, Ada Frances Pearson Hummer. It was demolished circa 2011.

Florence, the Pearson’s eldest daughter, was born in 1873. In 1897, she married Jeremiah “Jeff” William Cockrell, a carpenter (see Figure 8).

Figure 8: Florence Pearson Cockrell, oldest daughter of F.W. and Caron Pearson, with her husband, Jeff.

Florence and Jeff Cockrell had four children between 1898 and 1909. In 1913, Florence died from a postpartum hemorrhage in connection with the birth of her fifth child. Judging from the Cockrell/Thompson family tree on Ancestry.com, the family lost the baby at the same time. From Florence’s obituary:

“Florence, beloved wife of Mr. Jeff W. Cockrell, whose rather sudden death occurred on the 7th instant, at the family home near Vienna, was buried on last Friday in Andrew Chapel cemetery, to which the remains were followed by large numbers of sympathizing friends from far and near….The deceased was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Pearson, a devoted wife and mother, and highly thought of by a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. The demise of this amiable young woman has cast a shadow of deep sorrow over a happy household. Departed is survived by a husband and four children.”

Meanwhile, in 1912, the Pearson’s youngest daughter, Artie Belle, had married Luther Calvin Dodd, originally from Cherrydale in what is now Arlington County. Luther was a clerk in the federal government. Artie Belle and Luther bought a home in Clarendon, presumably scotching the plan for Artie Belle to take over Frank and Caron’s 30 acres outside Vienna.

Thus in 1920, Frank and Caron Pearson sold their 30-acre parcel to Henry and Clara Ames and moved in to Artie Belle and Luther’s Clarendon house as boarders. In 1924, however, Artie Belle died of lung cancer at age 36. At her death, her two boys were 10 and 7. Artie Belle is buried in an unmarked grave next to Luther Dodd’s at Andrew Chapel Cemetery, according to findagrave.com.

After Artie Belle’s death, Frank and Caron apparently moved in with Ada at her house on Beulah Road, judging from information on Frank’s death certificate. In 1923, Frank had the sad task of serving as the informant for the death certificate of his sister, Simanetta Pearson Wiley. In 1926, Frank recovered slowly from a health scare that had left him very ill. Two years later, in April 1928, Frank Pearson, 79, died of influenza. His obituary described him as “a well known and popular old resident of the Vienna neighborhood.” One month later, Caron Pearson, 79, who was already critically ill at the time of Frank’s death, died of exhaustion, an arterial inflammation condition, and gangrene. Frank and Caron Pearson are buried in Andrew Chapel Cemetery.

Middle daughter Ada, unlike Florence and Artie Belle, lived to old age. She had married Ira David Hummer, a farm laborer, in 1895. Hummer, who appears to have gone by his middle name, was later a teamster in the laundry industry. The Hummers had three sons. One died of diphtheria as a teenager. Another lived at the house with his wife and son—the Hummers’ grandson—through the 1930s. In mid-1940, David died of a stroke at age 69. In the years before his death he had been working as a farmer, according to his grandson and the 1940 census.. At some point in 1940, the family built a new house on the property. It’s unclear if this was before or after David’s death. Regardless, this brick house still stands, with an addition, on Beulah Road (see Figure 9). In 1941, Ada retained this house and its half-acre parcel after selling the remainder of her 30-acre plot. In 1943, she sold the half-acre, ending the Pearson family’s ownership of land in the study area.

Figure 9: Ada Pearson’s brick house on Beulah Road, where she lived for a short time her husband died and she had sold most of their 30 acres. The house remains today, with an addition.
Figure 10: An undated photo of Ada Pearson Hummer, courtesy of the family of her grandson, David E. Hummer.

Ada Frances Pearson Hummer (see Figure 10) was a resident of Mt. Rainier, Maryland when she died in 1957. Ada, like her parents and sisters as well as her husband, David, is buried in Andrew Chapel Cemetery.

[Sources include: Ancestry.com; Arlington National Cemetery Facebook page, July 4 2020 post on John Follin; Edmonston, Gabriel, A Genealogical History of the Follin Family in America; Fairfax County Circuit Court Historic Records Center (property deeds); Fairfax County Department of Tax Administration Property Search; Fairfax County GIS and Mapping Services Digital Map Viewer, Historical Imagery Viewer, and Map Wizard; Fairfax Herald via the Virginia Room at the City of Fairfax Regional Library; Findagrave.com. ]

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