Why did George Pearson die in New Orleans?

When Eliphalet Pearson (1802 - 1870) died in New Orleans he had three living children: George Pearson (1842 - 1922), Caroline "Carrie" (Pearson) Granger (1845 - 1880), and Eliphalet Pearson (1848 - ?).  Carrie was the first wife of Louis Edwin Granger and they had one daughter.

The outline of George's life is fairly simple. George was born about 1842 in Troy, New York, the oldest child of Eliphalet and Salome (Boutwell) Pearson. George was an auctioneer in New Orleans. He married Mary Louisa Deunkel, a daughter of Bavarian immigrants, in New Orleans in 1868. They had three children born in New Orleans: Catherine Louisa (1869 - before 1900), Lottie Isabelle (1872 - 1923) and George (1876 - 1950). The family lived in New Orleans until at least 1880. As late as the mid 1880s George was well known and remembered in New Orleans, but had apparently left the city. By 1900 the family had relocated to California. In California, George and Mary Louisa ran an investment company at least until Mary Louisa's death, in 1912. Mary Louisa died in the San Francisco bay area and was eventually interred in Colma City. A George Pearson died in 1922 in New Orleans in the Charity Hospital. He died of a carcinoma in the neck and chronic bronchitis. He was 80 years old and had been born in New York. The informant was the undertaker.

On the surface there is no connection to the family that moved to California and the man who died in New Orleans. However, when his daughter, Lottie Isabelle, died in San Francisco in 1923, the coroner send a telegram to New Orleans looking for the next of kin to claim the body. The response from the New Orleans coroner was her father George Pearson had died the previous fall and no next of kin were known.

George went back to New Orleans after his wife died. When? Why? Did he still have friends there? Family? His brother's children? His sister's daughter?

Carrie Pearson - Found!

Until yesterday, I have posited that Carrie Pearson could be a fiction created by Louis Edwin Granger. She existed on secondary family records and in genealogies that relied on him to report them. There was no birth record, no death record, no marriage record - nothing. I was able to piece together a slim picture based on secondary sources -

• Carrie Pearson may have been born about 1845, lived in New Orleans and married Granger about 1865, presumably when Granger was stationed in New Orleans with the Union Army.¹
• Louis' wife during the war may have had a brother named George, who was a trader in New Orleans²
• My grandmother, Louis' granddaughter, had told my father this crazy story that Louis had shot his first wife after catching her in bed with another officer.

This was not much to go on, and there aren't many primary civil public records on-line for Southern states during this period.

So last week, I got my first lead. I went to the National Archives in Washington, DC and pulled the record for Louis Edwin Granger's court martial. I found a few interesting things:

• Granger was represented by a lawyer by the name of Eliphalet Pearson.
• In his closing statement after being convicted he wrote: “In conclusion the accused would state that domestic afflictions and calamities not proper to be disclosed but with which some of the court are familiar and which had their influence in the settlement of debts with a view to keep these matters from the public gaze - may have led accused to acts of indiscretion, but he believes himself utterly incapable of knowingly defrauding his fellow man or that government under whose auspices he has been acting, and under whose banner it has been his pride and glory to act.”
• The court martial materials contained a letter detailing and act of adultery from his unnamed while Louis was working with the Freedman's bureau.³

I found it very interesting that the lawyer has the same name as the alleged first wife. I decided to research Eliphalet Pearson. I found that Eliphalet Pearson was a rather famous early educator and minister affiliated with Harvard University. There was also an Eliphalet Pearson who was rather prominent from Indiana. And there was an Eliphalet Pearson who graduated from Dartmouth. This last Eliphalet Pearson became a lawyer moved to New Orleans in 1865.⁴ According to the 1850 Federal Census and the 1855 Massachusetts Census, there is a young woman living in the house named Caroline Pearson. Who was born about 1845 in New York. And a young man named George Pearson.

At this point I was very excited. I didn't have anything definitive - it was all circumstantial, but also very interesting. I found Eliphalet died in 1870.⁵ I looked for graves for Eliphalet Pearson in New Orleans. Findagrave directed me to Greenwood Cemetery. At Greenwood cemetery, I found Eliphalet Pearson buried at 11 Mulberry Cedar Aloe. The site was shared by two other people: Selone Pearson - a badly transcribed index for Salome Pearson, Elipahlet's wife, and Carrie Granger. Most likely the Caroline Pearson/ Carrie Pearson who married Louis Edwin Granger.

Notes:

¹ Granger, James Nathaniel; Launcelot Granger of Newbury, Mass and Suffield Conn.: A Genealogical History, p 368-369.
² "The Luck of Louis Granger. War's romance illustrated by grateful Scotchman - bequeathing $50,000 to Union Officer." The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA) Monday, May 02, 1887, pg. 4, Issue 98, col E.
³Record Group 153: Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army), 1792 - 2010, Series : Court Martial Case Files, compiled 12/1800 - 10/1894, War Department. PP-479.
⁴A memorial of the class of 1827, Dartmouth college, Dartmouth College. Class of 1827, Jonathan Fox Worcester, Centennial anniversary of the College, 1869, p. 51; Bench and Bar of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Volume 1, William Thomas Davis, Boston History Company, 1895, p.450.
⁵General Catalogue of Dartmouth College and the Associated Institutions(1880) p. 27