Richmond Mumford Pearson
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Richmond Mumford Pearson (1805-1878) was an American jurist who served as Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1858 to 1878. He was the father of Congressman Richmond Pearson and the father-in-law of North Carolina Governor Daniel Gould Fowle.
Pearson lived much of his life in what is now Yadkin County, North Carolina and was a lawyer, state legislator, and Superior Court judge before being named to the state Supreme Court. He was a prominent pro-Union Whig Party politician before the American Civil War and a Republican after the war.
As Chief Justice, the "domineering" Pearson helped the Court survive the Civil War and saw it through the 1868 constitutional change that made the Court justices elected by popular vote, rather than by the General Assembly (legislature).[1]
