My Genealogy Hound

Charles A. Richardson owns and cultivates a farm of one hundred and sixty acres on section 13, Douglas township, and is accounted one of the prominent and influential agriculturists of his community. He came to Union county in 1877 and thus for more than thirty years has made his home within its borders. His birth occurred in Knox county, Ohio, November 14, 1854. His father, John Richardson, was likewise a native of the Buckeye state and a farmer by occupation. He was married in Knox county, Ohio, to Miss Elizabeth Lukens and they had a family of five children.

Charles A. Richardson, the second son, was reared to farm life and acquired his education in the common schools. When not busy with his text-books he aided in the work of the fields and remained at home until he had attained his majority, when he rented a farm and thus started out in business life on his own account. His father and family came westward to Iowa, settling first in Cedar county, where they lived for two years, and then removed to Johnson county, where they resided until 1876. All then came to Union county and the father died in Creston in September, 1891, at the age of seventy-two years. He had for about eight years survived his wife, who died in 1883 at the age of forty years. On coming to Union county they had settled east of Creston and afterward took up their abode in the town.

Charles A. Richardson came with the family to Iowa, arriving in this county in 1877. He was married here, on the 28th of February, 1878, to Miss Fannie Codman, a native of Pennsylvania and a daughter of Timothy Codman, who settled in Iowa at an early day. Following his marriage Mr. Richardson engaged in the cultivation of a rented farm for a number of years and then purchased eighty acres in Adair county, which he improved and made his home for twelve years. On the expiration of that period he sold his Adair county property and returned to Union county, purchasing one hundred and sixty acres of land where he now resides. It has been his home since 1900 and his labors have wrought a marked transformation in the place converting it into an excellent farm which annually returns to him a gratifying income in reward for the care and labor which he bestows upon the fields.

Unto Mr. and Mrs. Richardson have been born twelve children: Bertha, now the wife of William Armstrong, a resident farmer of Douglas township; Albert, who married Ida Haakinson and is a farmer of Douglas township; Elmer, a twin brother of Albert, who wedded Rosa Haakinson and follows farming in Adair county; Jesse, who married Leone Maxwell of Wichita, Kansas, where he is engaged in the auctioneering business; Harry, an auctioneer well known in this county; Lydia, Mary, Grace, Ralph, Charles, Robert and Dolly, all yet at home.

Mr. Richardson votes with the republican party where questions of state and national importance are involved but at local elections casts an independent ballot. He has never sought to figure prominently in public life as an office seeker or in any other way, being content to concentrate his energies upon his business affairs. He is well known as an energetic farmer who has broken the raw prairie and improved several farms, thus contributing in substantial measure to the agricultural development of the county.