{"nrhp_refnum":"70000483","name":"Richmond Hill Law School","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"N of Richmond Hill on SR 1530","address_restricted":false,"city":"Richmond Hill","county":"Yadkin County","state":"NC","lat":36.26874455600006,"lon":-80.60117917999997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1970-10-15","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Politics/Government"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Richmond Hill Law School is a two-story brick house in the Rockford vicinity of Yadkin County, North Carolina, about 5 miles northwest of East Bend. It was built after 1848 as the home and law school of Richmond M. Pearson.","why_significant":"It was the home and law school of Richmond M. Pearson, who served as Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1850 to 1878. Over 1,000 law students studied with him from the 1850s, including several later prominent officials and judges. The house also has an unusual plan that may reflect its use as a school.","narrative":"Richmond Hill Law School is a two-story brick house in Yadkin County, North Carolina, northwest of East Bend. It was the home and law school of Richmond M. Pearson, born in 1805, who qualified for the bar in 1826, served in the state legislature and on the Superior Court, and was Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1850 to 1878. His law school began in Mocksville and moved to his newly built home after 1848. More than 1,000 students studied there, among them a U.S. Secretary of the Interior, state chief justices, a federal justice, a congressman and a governor. The house is built of brick in American bond with a low hip roof, a deep plain cornice and a three-bay facade with alternating recessed and projecting panels. Its roughly T-shaped plan, with a center hall and a perpendicular stair hall, appears to come from one building campaign. The property later passed through several owners before the Yadkin County Historical Society acquired it in 1968. It was recorded as in ruins and unoccupied.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Greek Revival (simple Greek Revival mantels noted)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Form marks condition as ruins, altered, and unoccupied, with preservation work in progress; the owner was the county historical society, and a later 1978 grant application proposed interior restoration for use as a house museum.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:55.824454-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/92/7228/47722892/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/70000483.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000483/57aadd9d06-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000483/57aadd9d06-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"G Keith Hall","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richmond_Hill_Law_School.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">G Keith Hall</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richmond_Hill_Law_School.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47722892","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Hill_Law_School","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q22061062"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/yadkin-county/richmond-hill-law-school-70000483/"}