Walter Beverly Pearson
| Walter Beverly Pearson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 2 December 1861 Madison, Wisconsin |
| Died | 19 May 1917 Chicago, Illinois |
| Resting place | Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum, Chicago, Illinois |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | President of Standard Screw Company |
| Children | Frederick Beverly Pearson, Beatrice Pearson |
| Parent(s) | Anna Wayles Hemings Jefferson, Albert Pearson |
| Relatives | Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, Eston Hemings and Julia Isaacs Hemings, Carl and Frederick Jefferson |
Walter Beverly Pearson (December 2, 1861 - May 19, 1917) was an American inventor, industrialist and president of the Standard Screw Company. It became known as Stanadyne Automotive Corporation.
He is believed to have been an unacknowledged great-grandson of President Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings, as he was a descendant of their son Eston Hemings.
Walter Pearson was born in Madison, Wisconsin during the American Civil War to Anna Wayles Hemings Jefferson (1836-1866) and her husband Albert T. Pearson (1829-1908) of New York state. Anna was a native of Virginia and the only surviving daughter of Eston Hemings Jefferson and his wife Julia Ann Isaacs. Albert worked as a carpenter in Madison; he served as a captain in the Union Army during the war. Walter had an older brother Fred and an older sister Julia. Their mother died prematurely, at the age of 30, when Walter was just four years old. The three children were educated in public schools.
Pearson's maternal grandfather Eston Hemings Jefferson was born into slavery at Monticello. Seven-eighths European in ancestry, he was legally white under Virginia law and freed in 1826 by the will of his master (and father) Thomas Jefferson. Julia Ann Isaacs, a free woman of color, was of African, European-American and German-Jewish descent. They moved their family from Ohio to Wisconsin in 1852 for added security after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Although all their family was free, slave catchers often kidnapped and enslaved free blacks in those years, as well as capturing fugitive slaves.
In 1852 the Hemings family had changed their surname to Jefferson and entered the white community in Madison, Wisconsin. Anna Jefferson was 16 that year. Both Anna and her brother Beverly Jefferson married white spouses, and all their descendants have identified as white.
Pearson had gone into business in Chicago. By the late 19th century, he operated a small manufacturing company that made screws and developed technology which made his company valuable enough to sell to Standard Screw (based in Connecticut) in 1900. When appointed as president in 1904, Pearson soon doubled the company's subsidiaries from four to eight, increasing their skilled workforce and facilities. He led Standard Screw Company to dominance in the industry through the early twentieth century. Together with two other leaders, Pearson introduced the " 'new Standard Automatic,' a machine that reduced the cost of making screws nearly 40 percent." In 1904 he reduced prices, which gave the company an edge with the new auto manufacturers, whose rapid expansion as an industry fed Standard's profits.
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