Richmond Mumford Pearson, Jr. was born 26 January 1852 at
Richmond Hill in
Yadkin County, North Carolina, the fourth of five children of North Carolina Supreme Court Justice
Richmond Mumford Pearson. Pearson attended
Horner Military Academy and
Princeton College. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1874. The same year he was appointed United States
consul to
Verviers and
Liège,
Belgium, which he resigned in 1877. In 1882, he married Gabrielle Thomas. They had four children. Pearson was elected to one term (1884–86) in the
North Carolina House of Representatives and later to two consecutive terms in the U.S. House, serving from 1895 to 1899. When he ran for re-election in 1898, he was initially declared the loser, and
William T. Crawford the winner. But he successfully contested the election and was seated for the last half of the
Fifty-sixth Congress (May 10, 1900 to March 1901). President
Theodore Roosevelt appointed Pearson consul to
Genoa in 1901, ambassador to
Persia in 1902, and ambassador to
Greece and
Montenegro in 1907. He retired from the diplomatic service in 1909, and lived most of his later life at his home in
Asheville, North Carolina, called "
Richmond Hill" (the same name as his father's home in Yadkin County). It was there that he died in 1923. ==References==