Jonathan Pearson
Jonathan Pearson was born in Chichester, New Hampshire in February 1813. His father was a miller who served in the Revolutionary army.
Peason received his preparatory training in New England and moved with his father to Schenectady. Jonathan was sent to college and graduated first in his class from Union College in 1835, He taught science and natural history at Union for many years. He also was college treasurer and librarian.
Personal interest in his family's history led him to genealogy and then to the study and translation of documents relating to the history of New Netherland and New York. He is responsible for the production of many invalualable resources -most of which were published by his contemporary, Joel Munsell.Here are some links to what we have said about Professor Pearson so far:
Jonathan Pearson died in 1887. Although he passed almost a hundred years before we began our search for the social history of this early American community, Pearson was arguably the single most important contributor to reclaiming and interpreting the history of the people of colonial Albany.
Sources:
Although dead for more than a century, Jonathan Pearson is our most valuable "staff member." I have personally spoken to him many times! This sketch is derived chiefly from
community-based resources and an online biographical profile. Biographical note. Another Sketch by Rev. George Alexander.
Young Pearson kept a diary of his travels along the Erie Canal in 1822. Pearson left us many useful essays.
Follow this link to more information about Jonathan Pearson on this website.
Photograph printed on frontispiece of his History of the Schenectady Patent. A portrait by Samuel Sexton done in 1875 was reproduced in a Schenectady County Historical Society newsletter in 2005.