Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: WATERS. HICKS, DUNSTONE,
son of Francis and Jane (Waters) Pearce, was
born twenty-five miles east of Land's End, England, January 26, 1819.
His father died at the age of fifty-four, and his mother at the age of
ninety-four. They had twelve children, of whom eleven grew to
maturity—seven sons and four daughters—of whom three sons and two
daughters are now living. William is the eldest of the living children,
and lived with his parents until twenty-three years of age. April 4,
1843, he was married to Elizabeth Hicks. For some time before and after
his marriage he worked in the mines of Ballswiden, in the Parish of St.
Just, about six miles from Land's
End.
Leaving Penzance September 4, 1848, and landing in New York about October 15, 1848, he worked in the various mines in the East; was in Bristol, Connecticut, copper mines three years and nine months. His wife died in England, in 1853, five years after he left that country. She left four children, and after her death Mr. Pearce sent for them. His son William was accidentally killed in Mexico, in 1885, by firing at a target. Of the other children, Francis and John reside in Los Angeles, and Elizabeth Dunstone resides at the New Almaden mines. Mr. Pearce went to Wisconsin in 1856, and located at Blue Mounds, and bought a farm; was married there, October 25, 1856, to Louisa Dunstone, a sister of John Dunstone, who married Mr. Pearce's daughter Elizabeth. Mr. Pearce worked the farm until 1860, when he came to California, and was at once employed at the Almaden mines, where he blasted rocks and timbered, and did other work in the mines for about fifteen years. During this time he spent one season on Williams Creek, in British Columbia, working in the gold mines there. In 1869 he bought a ranch at Los Gatos, and came here to live in 1875. He sold his ranch in 1882, and in January, 1884, went into the grocery business in Los Gatos, which he still follows.
Mr.
and Mrs. Pearce have had six children, named (see bio of James H., Josiah, Bartholomew
(deceased), Louisa, Bartholomew, and Franklin.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
Pg. 602
SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHY PROJECT