Pearsons was born in Bradford, Vermont on April 14, 1820.

[1] He graduated in medicine at Woodstock, and practiced in Chicopee, Massachusetts until 1857.

[1] In 1860, he moved to Chicago, where he rapidly accumulated a large fortune in real estate.

He was best known through his large gifts to educational eleemosynary institutions, the Presbyterian Hospital of Chicago and Chicago Theological Seminary (Congregational) being especially favoured.

There are few of the smaller colleges to which he did not give from $25,000 to $250,000, and his gifts ran well up into the millions.