(b. 1842)
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Annie Blount Pearce of Hillsborough attended the Burwell School c. 1850s. She lived her married life with husband James W. Turrentine at Seven Hearths which still stands today [1].
Annie Blount Pearce was apparently born in Virgina in 1842. She was the daughter of the Rev. Samuel J. Pearce and Mary Blount. Rev. Samuel J. Pearce, a native born Englishman, came to the United States at an early age, lived in Virginia, and became a Methodist minister in the 1830s.
Rev. Samuel J. Pearce was appointed to the charge of the First Methodist Church on E. Tryon Street c. 1842. In 1848, Rev. Samuel J. Pearce vacated the position of minister and was succeeded by Rev. William M. Jordan. Rev. William M. Jordan was the father of Ann Jordan and Elizabeth Jordan , both Burwell students.
Rev. Samuel J. Pearce gave up his pastorship and embarked on several money-making ventures of an academic nature. He advertised in The Hillsborough Recorder [2] on December 20, 1848, that he was opening a school "in that pleasant dwelling known as the residence of the late Mrs. Watters" known today as the Nash-Hooper House. It seems likely that Annie Blount Pearce attended her father's short-lived school in 1848-1849, and then attended the Burwell School. The Burwell School Catalogue of 1848-51 [3] carries Annie Pearce's name, and she may have been enrolled there in 1850, when she was 8 years old, or any of the years immediately thereafter.
The Rev. Pearce was interested in maps and globles, and as early as 1852 began to plan a map of North Carolina, which was published in 1857 with William D. Cooke, but only Cooke's name appeared on it. Rev. Pearce "after 10 years of toil and expense" published his own map as "Pearce's New Map of the State of North Carolina" in 1866. There were other impressions in 1871, 1872, and 1873 under Alfred Williams's name. Charlotte and Raleigh newspapers, and obituaries of the Rev. Pearce published on January 1, 1879, praised his map as the best ever done of North Carolina.
At age seventeen, Annie Blount Pearce was listed as a teacher in the United States Census of 1860 [4], although it is unknown where she taught. On January 20, 1863, at the age of twenty-one, Annie Blount Pearce married as his second wife Hillsborough speculator, James W. Turrentine. James W. Turrentine purchased a comfortable home, now known as Seven Hearths in Hillsborough for his new bride. He aided in buying the home next door for her parents, Rev. Samuel J. Pearce and Mary Blount. On April 15, 1870, the Pearces sold their home to the Thomas D. Tinnen family and left Hillsborough. Rev. Samuel J. Pearce died in Charlotte of paralysis on December 25, 1878. James W. Turrentine countinued his speculations in Hillsborough properties for a number of years. There are no marked graves in Hillsborough for James W. Turrentine and Annie Blount Pearce [1].
Annie Blount Pearce was born in 1842, in Smithfield, VA, USA. Annie Blount Pearce was apparently born in Virginia in 1842 shortly before her father, Rev. Samuel J. Pearce's appointment to the First Methodist Church on E. Tryon Street in Hillsborough [1].