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Legal Legend
Yadkin historians touting site of an unorthodox law school
By Mary Giunca | Journal Reporter
Published: July 26, 2008
BOONVILLE - When Jimmie Hutchens toured the shambles that was Richmond Hill in 1965, all he found to
salvage was part of a mantel, part of the front door and remnants of an inside door made of walnut.
He carried the doors out on his back. He was determined to restore the house, which was home to Richmond
Pearson, who was a N.C. Supreme Court chief justice from 1859 to 1878.
Hutchens, a schoolteacher, faced a formidable task. The roof of the house had caved in, stairways had
crumbled, and vandals had ripped up the walls and floors. But he and a group of Yadkin County history buffs
worked for more than 20 years to raise about $250,000 to restore the house.
Hutchens, who died in 1999, formed the Yadkin County Historical Society to restore the house. Today the
society owns the house and one acre of its site. The Historic Richmond Law School Commission owns an
additional 10 acres around the house and the commission oversees the care of the estate and the 30 -acre
park around the house, which is known as the Historic Richmond Hill Nature Park.
Now a new group of Yadkin County history buffs is hoping to generate interest in Richmond H ill, its history
and its natural beauty.
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David Matthews, a member of the Historic Richmond Law School Commission, said that his group wants to
improve the park and bring more people there for hiking, community activities and family picnics.
The group is planning to clean up the area around the old spring and get new markers for the trees on the
nature trail, he said. That could be good for the historic side of Richmond Hill as well, he said.
"If we get people to the park," he said, "they get knowledge of the house."
The house is open for tours from 2 to 4:30 p.m. on the third Sunday of the month from April through October.
Richmond Hill is the county's most historic and its most undiscovered site, said Andrew Mackie, the president
of the Yadkin County Historical Society. Pearson's influence spread far and wide in the 19th century and
beyond.
"It's a historic site devoted to the law. People don't respect the law. They try to find ways to avoid it, to evade
it," Mackie said. "Pearson's respect for the law allows civilized people to resolve disputes."
From 1848 until his death in 1878, Pearson ran an unorthodox law school on the estate's grounds. He liked to
assemble law students under the trees where he conducted Socratic style question-and-answer sessions. He
estimated that he taught about 1,000 students, including six state Supreme Court justices, three U.S.
representatives and three state governors.
Mackie said that historians generally think that Pearson put the school in such a remote area either because
he got the land from his first wife or because he thought that the lack of city distractions would be good for his
students.
Kemp Battle, a law student at the school, wrote: "I think the place has as few attractions as any I have ever
seen."
Many of the students lived in log huts on the grounds of the estate and their main source of entertainment was
the taverns of nearby Rockford. Battle noted that some students prepared "to practice at more bars than the
one."
School was in session from April until Christmas. Pearson certified a student for graduation after a year or two
of study.
Pearson was an independent thinker who was opposed to secession, although he owned slaves. During the
Civil War he became known throughout the state because of his rulings against t he conscription of men into
the Confederate Army.
He used the writ of habeas corpus to free men who believed that they were unjustly conscripted. His
decisions were based on his belief in the rule of law and the freedom of the individual, Mackie said.
"Let justice be done though the heavens fall," Pearson was fond of saying.
The site has continued to yield areas for study, Mackie said. Recently two years worth of student notes have
been found. The notes could shed light on how the law school functioned.
Pearson's domestic life was also interesting, Mackie said.
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He brought his first wife, Margaret Williams, to the estate in 1848 to live in a log house that was near the site
of the later brick house.
His wife was accustomed to society and found the isolation of Richmond Hill unbearable. She was declared
insane and died in 1855.
Mary McDowell Bynum became Pearson's second wife in 1859. She and Pearson hammered out an
extensive pre-nuptial agreement that even set how high the porch of the house could be.
After Pearson died, Bynum left the estate and not much is known about the house until the restoration efforts
started in the 1960s, Matthews said.
"At some point the house was abandoned and allowed to fall down," he said. "No one kept its importance
alive."
■ Mary Giunca can be reached at 727-4089 or at mgiunca@wsjournal.com.
■ Richmond Hill is at 4641 Law School Road near Boonville.
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