George R 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 Fearons was 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.
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. 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 Fearons and Jennie Phoebe Hadsall
1. George Hadsall Fearons-born 8 Nov 1853 in Newport
Like his father George 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 Fearons later became general attorney for Western Union Telegraph Co. in New York City; he oversaw the nationwide legal dealings of Western Union for many years.
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. 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.