William Gaston Pearson

William Gaston Vickers (1828-1924) was a large landowner southwest of the Durham's Station village. He sold much of the land that homeowners developed as Morehead Hill, and that later became the Forest Hills neighborhood. A proponent of education, Vickers established a private school on his lands in the 1880s and served as Durham County's school superintendent from 1890 until 1894. In the 1894 North Carolina elections, he supported the Populist Party because of its progressive education policies and served in the state House of Representatives 1895-97.