The Pearson House at the foot of Duke of Cumberland Street or Old Maid’s Lane is another rare survivor from the late 17th century. Mariner Francis Harris occupied the house and garden in 1704 but his listing as a freeholder in 1696 pushes the construction date back at least that far in time. In form the house is typical of the period. The L-shaped original core has small rooms, a gable roof with a massive chimney on the west side, and cellars below. Although not original, the hip roof addition to the south is also quite old, probably built in the mid to late 18th century. The room added to the northeast corner of the house probably dates from the early 19th century, but the chimney attached to it, capped with dual clay pipes, is more recent.

Francis Harris died in the early 1720s and his sons Francis and Moses, also mariners, inherited the property. The brothers died in quick succession in 1742 and 1746. Probate inventories of the house taken after each death reveal that they were quite poor. Francis’ three enslaved people made up £60 of his £66 probate, while Moses’ worldly goods were worth only £19. Moses Harris Jr, yet another mariner, inherited the house and lived there with his wife and five children until his death in 1782.

By 1800 William Gibbons had acquired the property from Harris’ heirs. Originally from Hamilton Parish, Gibbons and at least two of his sons were merchants in St George’s. He was a very active Methodist, one of the 15 trustees who facilitated the purchase of the lot and construction of neighbouring Ebenezer Methodist Church. He must have found it convenient to have the church next door at the end of his own private path. Gibbons’ granddaughter and her husband Albert Inglis mortgaged the property to Anna Maria Outerbridge in 1903, and when they defaulted six years later she sold it to engineer James R Pearson, from whom the house takes its name.