 He served as a Buffalo Soldier (9th Cavalry Troop B) from 1893-1898 in Fort Robinson, Nebraska during the Spanish-American War.After being discharged from the Army, he lived in Chicago, where he supplemented his early formal education by taking correspondence courses on insurance, business, religion, and law, including courses at the Chicago Correspondence School of Law.Pearson began development of Asheville's Burton Street (then known as Pearson Park) and Park View neighborhoods as African American subdivisions.