George Richard and
Jennie Phoebe Fearons
From Pieces of the Past Volume3, pages
236-238 by Jim Reis and reprinted here with his permission and from the family
files at the Campbell County Historical Society
George Fearon was born about 1821, a native of Ireland, who came to Newport in 1838. He was a man of many talents and although he came to town as a tailor, he studied law and later became a community mover and shaker as a lawyer and politician. His political career included elections as a Newport councilman and then mayor in 1853. He also served as a deputy Campbell County clerk and a justice of the peace. He was elected later to terms as a state representative and state senator in the 1860s. Tradition has it that he set out to make Newport, his adopted town, a greater city than Cincinnati and applied himself to the task.
Fearons built his Newport home on 5.5 acres he purchased from James Taylor. The location was not part of Newport at the time, and the house sat on a hilltop south of the city. The original address was 420 Monmouth Street. For many years the 20-room, two-story Georgian style home with its six large windows across the front was referred to simply as "the mansion of the hilltop."
The house built for Taylor's granddaughter, Mount St. Martin's was down the hill from Fearons' home.
Children of George Richard Fearons and Jennie Phoebe Hadsall
1. George Francis Fearons b-8 Nov 1850 in Newport;
d-6 June 1930 in New York City
2. C E Fearons (male) b-1854 in Newport
3. Henry S Fearons b-25 Dec 1856 in Newport
4. Maria Katherina Fearons b-25 Dec 1856 in Newport
5. Oscar Augustine Fearons b-31 July 1860 in Newport
*********************
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, Thursday, 27 June 1861, page 3
At a meeting of quite a number of the friends of Colonel George W Fearons, of Newport, held at a private residence in the vicinity of the Court house, in this village (Alexandria) on Monday night last, we resolved to call upon that gentleman to represent Campbell County in the next Legislature, feeling that he is the man just fitted for the time and the occasion.
We all know his principles, we all know that he is a Union man, and that if elected he would be faithful and true to the best interests of Kentucky. That he has the talents and the courage to give them scope, none who know him will deny. They why should he not give his assent to become a candidate for the Lower House, and allow his name to be announced at once? Yours &c. PLURIBUS
*********************
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, Sunday, 14 July 1861, page 3
NEWPORT NEWS
To the Editor of the Enquirer: Please announce Colonel George R Fearons as the Union candidate for the Legislature at the election next and oblige. MANY UNION MEN
***************
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, Sunday, 21 July 1861, page 3
IN THE FIELD-James White, of Alexandria, is the Union candidate for the Legislature at the ensuing election in August next. Colonel Fearon of Newport, in conjunction with Colonel White, of Alexandria, will poll a strong vote in the upper end of the county.
**************
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, Thursday, 9 January 1862, page 3
NEWPORT NEWS
RESIGNED-We understand that George R Fearons, Esq. of Newport, who has held the position of Deputy Clerk of the Campbell County Court for several years past, has resigned that office.
******************
Like his father, George Jr. went into law, studying from 1872-73 in his father's Newport law office and also in the Covington office of John G Carlisle. Carlisle became a congressman and U.S. treasury secretary. Young Fearona later became a general attorney for Western Union Telegraph Co. in New York City; he oversaw the nationwide legal dealings of Western Union for many years. At the time of his death, June 6, 1930, of a heart attack in New York City, he was a trustee and treasurer of St Patrick's Cathedral.
Children of George Frances "Hadsall" Fearons and Marion Lena Phillip
1. M J Fearon b-1879 in Newport
2. George Hadsall Fearon b-1900 in Washington DC; d-1974
************
The elder Fearons and his wife eventually moved. An item in the Newport Kentucky State Journal June 12, 1886, mentions Fearons visiting Newport from Kansas, but accounts say he was lived in Kansas City, Mo. when he died April 5, 1899. He died in a police station where he was taken after being injured by a Kansas City railway elevator car.
The Fearons sold
their home in 1886 which was co-owned by Horace A and Katie Keefer of Kansas
City, Mo., to the
Campbell County Protestant Orphans Home.