My Genealogy Hound

HON. JAMES D. RICHARDSON, congressman from the Fifth Congressional District of Tennessee, was born in Rutherford County March 10, 1843. He secured a good education in the common branches during his boyhood days, and on the breaking out of the civil war was attending Franklin College, near Nashville. Before graduating, and at eighteen years of age, he entered the Confederate service, serving the first year as private, and the succeeding three years as adjutant of the Forty-fifth Tennessee Infantry. At the close of the war he began the study of law, and January 1, 1867, began the practice of his profession at Murfreesboro, where he soon became recognized as one of the foremost lawyers of that locality. As a Democrat he was elected to the lower house of the State Legislature in 1870, and on the organization of that body was made speaker, at that time being only twenty-eight years of age. The year following he was elected to the State Senate, serving in the session of 1873-74. In 1876 he was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention that met at St. Louis, and the same year was elected to the Forty-ninth Congress. He was also chairman of the Democratic Convention of that year that nominated a candidate for governor of Tennessee. Mr. Richardson is a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity, having served as Grand Master and High Priest of the Grand Chapter. He is also the author of “Tennessee Templars,” a work containing the biographies of all the Knights Templar of the State. Mr. Richardson is a member of the Christian Church. He wedded Miss Alabama R. Pippin in 1865, and by her is the father of five children, all living but one.