Charles Pearson on his 81st
birthday, in 1953.
About the year 1866 a stalwart Swedish man, Emil Pearson, packed up his goods and, with his wife and four year old son, Andrew, came to the United States, settling in Minnesota near Duluth. In February, 1872, a son Charles was born and in February, 1879, a daughter Esther was added to the family.
Occasionally Pearson would hear stories of the balmy climate and lush vegetation of the Pacific Northwest and, after several years of struggling with the severe Minnesota winters, these stories became more and more intriguing to him. Finally, after a winter of -60 degree weather, when the cows froze in the barns and the children were not allowed out of the house for weeks, Pearson decided to move west.
He had heard that there was a Swedish colony on an island in Puget Sound out in the northwestern tip of the country and that it was a veritable paradise. He arrived on South Whidbey and shortly thereafter, in 1883, took out homestead rights on one hundred sixty acres on the west slope of the hill overlooking Holmes Harbor on the west and Lone Lake on the east.
Emil and his sons, Andrew and Charles, built what is believed to be the first house in the Holmes Harbor-Lone Lake area. It was a large home with four bedrooms, a family room, a kitchen and a parlor. It was made entirely of logs dovetailed together without nails. The foundation of the old house is still in existence on the highest point of the hill above Lone Lake, as are the graves of Emil Pearson and his wife.
Emil’s son, Charles, married Amanda (Annie) Little, a widow with four children, Otis, Ivan, Coral and Bernice. Charles and Amanda later became the parents of a daughter, Iola. Until the children were grown Charles and his family lived in the original house built by his father.
The home built by Emil and Charles Pearson in the early 1870’s. Located above Lone Lake, it was made entirely from logs dovetailed together without the use of nails. The house consisted of four bedrooms, a family room, and a parlor, and was the early home of Charles and Amanda Little Pearson and children Otis, Ivan, Bernice, Coral, and Iola.
Emil Pearson had a brother, Andrew, who also came from Sweden to Minnesota and then to Portland, Oregon, before settling on South Whidbey near his brother, Emil, on property on the south of Lone Lake in 1883. He and hiswife had one daughter, Alice Lutena, born here in 1887. At the time Alice was due to be born her parents rowed across Admiralty Inlet to Port Townsend where doctors and medical services were available; six weeks later her father again rowed across the water and brought baby Alice and her mother home in the rowboat. As a young woman Alice married Frank Jewett and they had two sons and four daughters.
Shortly after his arrival on South Whidbey Andrew Pearson changed his last name to Peterson but his reason for doing this has been lost in the passage of time.