Womens History Month is the same month as the birthday of Stanwood’s Namesake, Clara Stanwood, March 18th.

Clara Stanwood Pearson, Namesake for the town of Stanwood,Washington.

Clara J. Stanwood Pearson was born in Lowell, Massachusetts March 18th, 1849.  In 1868 the came to the Puget Sound by way of the Isthmus of Panama, when she was 19 years of age. She joined the Pearson Family in Coupeville and on the June 3rd, 1868 she was married D. O. Pearson. In 1877 the young couple and their children moved to Stanwood then known as Centerville.  He established a mercantile and had a wharf built on the shallow mouth of the Stillaguamish River.  After living on the waterfront for sixteen years they moved north to their home on Market Street, now the Pearson House Museum.

Her children attended a small school on the waterfront but in 1892 she lobbied for a new school among other social needs.   To learn more, click the photograph below and read more.