This whole discussion about the naming of Chester could be irrelevant. The Rev. Horace Edwin Hayden, M. A. wrote a genealogy of some Virginia families with lots of references to Pennsylvania in 1891. In addition to the Virginia families he has a lot of information on Pennsylvania families as he lived in Pennsylvania and was a member of numerous Pennsylvania Genalogical Societies. He has some excellent notes on the two Thomas Pearson/Pierson families that explains them very clearly. He then mentions that neither of them was responsible for the naming of Chester as tradition states. He had been researching the families as descendants of Major John West and his wife, Sarah Pearson, daughter of Thomas Pearson of Marple, intermarried with numerous Virginia families.