Francis Pearce and family in New Zealand
Francis Pearce and family in New Zealand —At the end of Part 1, Francis (Frank) and Mary welcomed the birth of my grandfather, Earl Pearce, in 1892 in Granite, Montana. Francis, a miner from Cornwall, had emigrated to the US in 1884, traveling first to New Almaden Quicksilver Mine near San Jose, California, then to Montana, which was experiencing a silver mining boom.
Francis Pearce and Mary Baker in Montana
My great-grandfather, Francis “Frank” Pearce was born in 1864 in Redruth, Cornwall, England, the son of Thomas and Susan (Pryor) Pearce. His father Thomas was a miner, as were both grandfathers. But the mining industry in Cornwall was declining and in 1884, at the age of 20,