Reverday J. Pierson, junior member and business manager of the well-known firm of Holmes & Pierson, the editors and proprietors of the Riverside Daily Press and Weekly Horticulturist, of Riverside, is a native of Licking County, Ohio, and was born in 1848. When a child his parents moved to Springfield, Illinois, and thence in 1857 to Poweshiek County, Iowa. He was engaged in his attendance in the public schools until fifteen years of age, and then apprenticed to the printers trade at Montezuma, Iowa. After serving his apprenticeship, he commenced his travels as a journeyman, and was engaged on the Chicago Tribune, and also several job offices in Chicago and St. Louis.
In 1866 his roving disposition prompted him to enter the United States military service, and he enlisted in the Fifth United States Cavalry. The next two years was spent with his regiment on the Pacific coast and in the Territories, being stationed in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and California, his first advent in Southern California in 1868, at which time he was the hospital steward of Drum Barracks at Wilmington. In 1869 he was honorably discharged from the service, and after some months working at his trade in San Francisco, Sacramento and Marysville, returned to his home in Iowa.
Shortly after his arrival there he established the Malcolm Gazette, which he later consolidated with the Montezuma Republican, and for the next three years conducted one of the most successful newspaper enterprises of that section. In 1873 he located at Des Moines, Iowa, and was engaged as one of the editors and publishers of the Iowa State Journal, until 1876. In that year he went to Denver, Colorado, and established a job printing office, and also established and published the Colorado Law Reporter. Mr. Pierson spent about eight years in that city, and while there was identified with many of the enterprises and speculative “booms” so intimately connected with the building of that wonderful city. He experienced the usual successes and also reverses, and in 1884 decided to seek a home in Southern California. In that year he came to Los Angeles, and a year later located in Riverside. After a year in the latter place, he purchased from J. H. Roe a one-half interest in the Valley Echo, and was engaged in the publication of that paper until December, 1888, when the firm of Holmes, Roe & Pierson was formed, and he assumed the position of business manager in the publication of Riverside’s leading paper. Mr. Pierson is not only a practical printer, well versed in the details of his calling, but is a first-class businessman as well, and much of the success of the enterprise is justly attributed to his able management. In political matters he is a Republican, and stanch in his support of the principles of that party. He is a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and steward of the same. He is also a member and secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association of Riverside, and of the fraternal societies; he is also a member of the Masonic order and United Workmen.
Mr. Pierson was married in 1871, wedding Miss Louise P. Marshall, a native of Illinois, and their children are: Perley C., Ethel and Roy M. Mrs. Pierson’s parents were Jephtha H. and Mary M. (Condit) Pierson. His father was a native of New Jersey, and an early settler in the Western States, and engaged in mercantile pursuits. He was a veteran of the war of the Rebellion, having served with distinction in the Twenty eighth Regiment, Iowa Volunteers. Mr. Pierson’s mother was born and reared in New York.