Richard Olsen Richards Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1576-1577 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	RICHARD OLSEN RICHARDS, one of the representative citizens of 
Huron, Beadle county, was born in Sandefjord, Norway, on the 2d of 
January, 1866, and is a son of Richard Martin and Maren Sebille, his 
surname being derived from the Christian name of his father, according 
to the Norseland custom. Richard Martin was a prominent shipbuilder and 
vessel owner, the family having been long identified with maritime 
interests in the same line,—in fact, for as many generations as the. 
history is authentically traced. The family has resided for generations 
at Sandefjord and on landed estates in that vicinity; the names of some 
of these estates where its ancestors have been established during the 
various generations for several centuries are Kamfjord, Gogstad, Bogen 
and Stanum, their ship-building yards having been located on the estates 
of Kamfjord and Bogen. The subject was educated in an excellent private 
school in Sandefjord, and was graduated in 1880, after which he became 
clerk in the establishment of his uncle, Richard Andersen, who conducted 
a ship-chandler's store and export lumber business in Sandefjord. 
Shortly afterward he went to London, England, whence he came to America, 
landing at New York city in May, 1881, where he secured employment as 
interpreter at Castle Garden for the State Steamship Company, and later 
accepted a clerical position in the company's office, at 53 Broadway, 
where he remained until 1883, in November of which year he came to the 
west and identified himself with South Dakota. He was engaged in common 
labor during the spring and summer of 1884 and then secured a position 
as bookkeeper in the banking house of Ormsby, Clute & Company, at 
Mitchell, retaining this incumbency until the summer of 1885, when he 
was tendered and accepted the position of farm examiner of loans for the 
American Investment Company, of Emmettsburg, Iowa, later becoming 
manager of its extensive business in South Dakota, where its farm loans 
reached the notable aggregate of approximately three millions of 
dollars. Mr. Richards was thus engaged until November, 1888, when he 
organized the National Land and Trust Company, of Huron, and later 
effected the merging of the same into the Consolidated Land and 
Irrigation Company and finally into the Richards Trust Company, of 
Huron, of which he has since been president. The company is capitalized 
for one hundred thousand dollars and conducts a general brokerage 
business in connection with its functions in the making of loans upon 
approved real-estate securities and in the handling of trust funds, 
etc., the concern being one of the important and solid financial 
institutions of the state and controlling a large business. The 
Consolidated Land and Irrigation Company, of which Mr. Richards was the 
organizer, as already noted, had under its care and exclusive management 
seven thousand farms in South Dakota at one time, and all of these were 
located east of the Missouri river and taken in on farm mortgages by 
eighteen different non-resident mortgage-loaning companies during the 
long prevailing drouth and financial depression from 1888 to 1896. The 
Consolidated Company, of which Mr. Richards was president and manager, 
succeeded in merging the management of the landed interests of all these 
non-resident companies in South Dakota and held the same until 1896, 
when finally all of these companies failed, there being no sale for the 
land acquired and a general scarcity of money, which made it impossible 
for them to meet the interest on their debenture bonds and guaranteed 
mortgages. Mr. Richards has proved his powers of organization in a 
significant way, and is typically persistent and determined in carrying 
forward to success any enterprise with which he identifies himself, 
while his course is always straightforward and marked by integrity of 
purpose, so that he commands at all times the confidence, respect and 
esteem of those with whom he comes in contact, while he is essentially 
progressive and public-spirited. He has always exercised his franchise 
in support of the principles and policies of the Republican party save 
in 1896, when he cast his ballot for William J. Bryan for president. His 
religious faith is that of the Lutheran church, in which he was reared, 
and in 1892 he became fraternally identified with the Benevolent and 
Protective Order of Elks, in Sioux Falls. 

	At Hudson, Wisconsin, on the 8th of January, 1891, was solemnized 
the marriage of Mr. Richards to Miss Grace May Durell, who was born in 
Laconia, New Hampshire, of staunch old colonial ancestry. Her paternal 
great-great-grandfather was Eliphalet Durell, a French Huguenot, who 
fled from his native land to America to escape the religious 
persecutions entailed by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, 
settling in historic old Salem, Massachusetts. Anna (Weed) Hutchinson, 
the maternal grandmother of Mrs. Richards, was a daughter of Levi 
Hutchinson, who was a member of a New Hampshire regiment during the war 
of the Revolution, as is shown in the records of that commonwealth as 
well as in those pertaining to the war. Her mother was a member of the 
well-known-Sargent family of New England. Following are the names of the 
children of Mr. and Mrs. Richards, the respective dates of birth being 
entered in connection: Blanche Alma, December 20, 1891; Maren Grace, 
November 12, 1896; Josephine Helena, August 25, 1898; Thelma Dakota 
Durrell, August 9, 1900; and Richard Olsen, Jr., February 24, 1903.