Record #:

23449

Author(s):

Kammerer, Roger

Abstract:

Blount Coleman Pearce, born in New Bern in 1829, lived most of his life in Greenville. Pearce, in a partnership with Robert Kinsaul, was in the mercantile business. He sold cotton and transported goods up and down the Tar River. In 1855, Pearce married Ann Kinsaul. The couple had two children, Ada and Joseph D., a noted singer and a dentist respectively. During the Civil War, Pearce served in the Confederate army while his wife worked in the military hospital in Greenville. Following the war, he was a staunch Democrat and a member of the Greenville Masonic Lodge. He was the first man in North Carolina arrested for being a KKK member. In 1872, Pearce was elected Pitt County Register of Deeds but left Greenville in 1880 following the death of his wife. He worked for several years as a traveling salesman but returned to Pitt County in the 1890s. He served as a Deputy US Marshall and married Maggie Hunt of Sanford. He moved to Sanford shortly after and was elected Treasurer of newly formed Lee County. Blount Coleman Pearce died in Sanford in 1911.

Source:

Greenville Times / Pitt's Past (NC Microforms), Vol. Issue , Apr 28-May 11 2004, p8

Subject(s):

Mercantilism; Pearce, Blount Coleman, 1829-1911