My Genealogy Hound

HARRY PEARCE, hotel-keeper, Acmetonia, was born in Nottinghamshire, England, Dec. 27, 1838, a son of Samuel and Sarah (Slack) Pearce. His father was a weighman at coal mines, and died in 1844, and his mother in 1845. Harry, who was only six years old when his father died, went to work in the coal-mines, where he remained until 1873. After his mother’s death he resided with his grandmother Pearce until he was ten years of age. His grandfather, Harry Pearce, is said to have been a general in the British army, and was twenty years in the West Indies, but deserted and returned to England, where he was killed in a coal-mine in 1838. Our subject’s maternal grandparents, Isaac and Susan Slack, natives of Mansfield, England, were silk-weavers. Mr. Pearce is wholly a self-educated man, never having attended school, but is a good reader and writer, and has a fine library. He came to America in 1865, located at McKeesport, but soon after moved to Elk county, where he opened a cannel coal-mine. Two years later he went to Wyoming territory, in company with seventeen others, to open mines for the U. P. R. R., and only five of the seventeen returned, the others taking up land there, several being killed by the Indians. In 1873 Mr. Pearce came to Harmarville and conducted a hotel for nine years. He was two years in the same business at Springdale, and built his present hotel at Acmetonia in 1886. He married, Sept. 20, 1857, Mary Williams, a native of England, and a daughter of Peter and Ann Williams. Thirteen children have been born to this union, seven of whom are deceased. The living are Samuel C., a clerk in county treasurer’s office; Sarah H., widow of Harmar D. Wensel; Harry Albert, Thomas A., Joseph C. and Rhoda. Mr. Pearce has two adopted children, James and Jane Haugh. His wife is a member of the Campbellite Baptist Church. He is a republican.