Atwood Pierson, residing at Double Bridges, Tenn., and a prominent farmer of
Lauderdale County, was born within two miles of his present home September 16,
1856. His father, John F. Pierson, was born at Derby, Conn., and in his ninth
years, imbued with the love of travel an Western adventure, went to the State
of Ohio and remained there until his eighteenth year, when he went to an
Eastern seaboard and spent two years in ship building. He then attended a law
school at Lexington, Ky., where he graduated with high honors, and located at
Vicksburg, Miss., to practice law. He remained there several years, and
passed through one of the fearful scourges of yellow fever peculiar to the
place, and this caused him to leave there and to change his plans, so he moved
to Hale’s Point, in Lauderdale County, where he established himself as
shipping merchant and dealer in general merchandise. He became one of the
large land owners of Lauderdale County, and was a man of extensive reading and
sound judgment, and was acknowledged by all to be an upright, conscientious,
honorable gentleman. Mr. Pierson, Sr., married Miss E. Lee, who was descended
from the oldest and most prominent families of Virginia, her father being a
relative of Gen. Robert E. Lee, and her mother of Franklin Pierce. Eight
children were born to this marriage, five of them now living. Our subject,
Attwood Pierson, inherited Scotch and Irish blood. His father died at Ripley,
Tenn., September 8, 1878, and his mother at the same place September 11, 1881.
Mr. Pierson was well educated, and has made farming his chief business. He
was married in the house where he now lives February 18, 1880, to Miss Mattie
L. Jones, a daughter of Decatur P. Jones, and has had three children: Egbert
L., Kate F. and Neal Dow. Mrs. Pierson was born at the present homestead June
3, 1859. Mr. Pierson is neutral in politics. He owns a farm of 360 acres,
and raises grain and stock. It is a splendid stock farm, well watered, and
located at Double Bridges, in the northern part of Lauderdale County. Mr.
Pierson is a man of great force of character, and strictly hones in every
transaction.

Goodspeed’s Biographies of Lauderdale Co., TN