* I just found that brother John preceded Thomas and Edward to America. Here is the site. Ancestry
It was Thomas' brother John who made the first move to Pennsylvania. He became one of William Penn's First Purchases in England by receiving the grant of 259 acres of land to be laid out in the Province, the deeds of lease for the end release for the tract being signed by Penn, March 2, and 3, 1681, in his land office, in historic old George Yard in Lombard Street. Thomas accompanied his brother to Pennsylvania. John's grant of land was surveyed for him in Marple Township, October 25, 1683, and there he and Thomas proceeded at once to make their settlement. Later John formally deeded the tract to Thomas and went to live a little further to the North over the line in Newton Township. In 1684. at the Chester County Court, Thomas was made road supervisor, as well as constable of Marple Township. On several occasions he served in the grad Inquest of the court. In 1686 he was brought to the bar for drunkenness and swearing. This backsliding of his young manhood, however, was of short duration, for soon he was participating in other public was well as Quaker meeting service. In 1689, he became tax collector for Marple, and in 1690, overseer of the Springfield Meeting. He died in 1734 on the Marple homestead of his first settlement, and doubtless lies buried in the Springfield graveyard with his wife and others of this family in unmarked graves.
SOURCE: Steve Pearson's Descendants of Edward Peeresonne
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Brothers Thomas, 1653 - 1722, and Edward Pearson, 1651 - 1697, came to America to settle in Willima Penn's colony, sailing aboard the Comfort of Bristol in 1683. Thomas would settle in East Cain Township, Pennsylvania acting as Deputy Surveyor for William Penn , while older brother Edward went to Falls Township, Pennsylvania. See Thomas Pierson.
Then again, a different family record has the same brother Thomas "marrying Margery Ellen Smith, daughter of Robert Smith and Ellen Williamson on February 3, 1682 in Cheshire, England;" and, in 1683, the two departing from Liverpool and crossing in the ship "Endeavor". See Pearson. See also Rootsdigger.
Edward and Thomas were sons of Lawrence Pearson and Elizabeth Janey. Father Lawrence was an active Quaker back in the tiny community of Wilmslow, England.
In 1657, Lawrence Pearson of Wilmslow Parish refused to pay a tithe, and had a horse worth three pounds confiscated to pay an eight shilling tithe. In 1665 Lawrence Pearson of Pownall Fee was arrested at a Quaker meeting and jailed for two months. In 1650, Lawrence Pearson was imprisoned for testifying in the streets at Highfield, County Derby. In 1660, Robert Pearson, his brother, was put in jail for refusing to take an oath.id.http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~parisho/p/pearson2.html
Edward and Thomas' reasons for departing England, thus, seem primarily religious. They were, like their father Quakers. And by 1680 Quakers, in England, were imprisoned and even executed for failing to follow the Anglican faith. The Quakers, formally called Religious Society of Friends, began in England in 1652, based on the teachings of George Fox, 1624-1691. Quakers, so-called because of their ecstatic revelations, were considered radical Puritans, because the Quakers carried to extremes many Puritan convictions. But radicalism would seem a misnomer. Quakers taught a renunciation of violence, freedom of conscience, and a sober deportment which glorified of "plainness." Theologically, they preached an indwelling of the "Light of Christ" in every person, and in their meetings houses shared that light.
