Richmond M. Pearson moved to Yadkin from Davie County, N.C., about 1848, just before his election by the legislature to the North Carolina Supreme Court. He served on the Court for 29 years, 19 of them as Chief Justice, through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and his decisions were far-reaching and controversial. Opposed to secession, he strictly interpreted the laws during the Civil War and staunchly defended individual rights, using the writ of habeas corpus, with the support of Governor Zebulon Vance, to free men he believed had been illegally conscripted into the army, bringing discomfort to the Confederate government. During Reconstruction, when Republican Governor William W. Holden refused to enforce Pearson's writ to free imprisoned Conservatives, Pearson refused to invoke a posse comitatus, nearly faced impeachment for that refusal, and then presided over Holden's impeachment trial, which resulted in the first removal of a state governor in America. While serving on the Supreme Court, he also conducted a law school at Richmond Hill, where he is said to have taught over a thousand students, many of whom became distinguished attorneys and jurists, and he was known for his unstructured instruction and for holding classes outdoors on the estate. On his way to Raleigh to open the 1878 term of the Supreme Court, Pearson was stricken and fell unconscious in his carriage; he was carried to the Wilson Hotel in Winston, where he died. The Richmond Hill estate originally included a log house southeast of the present brick house, which was built about 1861 for Pearson's second wife, Mary McDowell Bynum, along with a separate kitchen west of the main building and log cabins scattered about the grounds for law students. By the 1960's the house had long been uninhabited and badly deteriorated, but restoration was undertaken with support from the Yadkin County Historical Society, governments, foundations, businesses, and individuals, and the house and grounds became the Historic Richmond Hill Nature Park managed by a county-appointed commission.