Charles L. Pearson

Charles Pearson was born May 14, 1860, in the town of Buffalo, Marquette County, Wisconsin. As a child, he moved with his family to Greenfield, Sauk County, Wisconsin, where he spent most of the rest of his life. He was educated in the schools in Greenfield and the neighboring city of Baraboo, Wisconsin.[1]

He attended business school in Janesville, Wisconsin, and then went to work as a railroad telegraph operator. He quit that business after a few years, because he thought working indoors was hurting his health. He purchased a farm in West Point, Wisconsin. After four years, he returned to Greenfield and purchased his family's former estate, where he cultivated strawberries for the rest of his life.[1][2]

In 1904, he ran for the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin State Assembly in Sauk County's 1st Assembly district. At the district convention, he lost the nomination to Ed C. Perkins, who went on to lose the general election.[3]

Two years later, he ran for Wisconsin Senate in the 27th Senate district, which then comprised Columbia and Sauk counties. The Republican incumbent, George Wylie, was defeated in the primary. Pearson ultimately prevailed by just 83 votes in the general election.[2]

In the last year of his term, he suffered a bout of pleurisy from which he never fully recovered. His health declined for the net eight years and he died in his home in Greenfield on March 12, 1918.[1]

Charles Pearson was the second of six children born to Levi and Eunice (née Sutton) Pearson.

He married Blanche Cora Hesselgrave in 1887. They had seven children together, though one child died young.[1] Their eldest son, Alger C. Pearson, was appointed postmaster in lieu of his father, but died just a year after his father due to a train accident.[4]