San Francisco County
John Brigham Richardson
John Brigham Richardson, an attorney of Oakland, was born in Pittsford, Monroe county, New York, January 17, 1853, the youngest son of Rev. J. B. and Susan Amelia (Bronson) Richardson. The father, a minister of the Presbyterian Church, lived to the age of eighty-one, dying in Geneva, New York. The mother died about 1856, at the age of forty-seven, leaving four sons, of whom the eldest, E.B., a nurseryman of Geneva, in now about fifty. Grandfather Nathaniel Richardson, a native of Connecticut, by occupation a farmer, represented his district tin the Legislature, and lived to the age of ninety-five. His wife, Comfort (Platt) Richardson, also a native of Connecticut, reached the age of eighty. Another of their sons was a minister of the Episcopal Church, Nathaniel Smith Richardson, D. D., born in Middlebury, Connecticut, January 8, 1810. He was a writer of some note and died in Bridgeport, Connecticut, August 7, 1883. Great-grandfather Richardson, also named Nathaniel, a native of Massachusetts, moved to Connecticut, where he followed the occupation of farming. Grandparents Philo and Chloe (Bronson) Bronson, after their marriage settled in Ontario county, New York, being among the pioneer farmers of that region, and both lived to an advanced age.
J.B. Richardson, the subject of this sketch, was educated in the common schools of Geneva in his youth, and at the age of seventeen years entered Hamilton College, and after four years’ course was graduated at that institution in 1874. He then entered the law office of Judge Folger, afterward Secretary of the Treasury under President Arthur, but then practicing law in Geneva, New York. After the elevation of Judge Folger to the bench of the Court of Appeals, Mr. Richardson continued in the office until he was admitter on examination to the bar of the Supreme Court of New York in 1876. In 1877 he came to Santa Barbara, California, where an aunt, Mrs. L.M. Bronson, resided, and there he practiced his profession for one year. In 1878 he came to Oakland, and for the first year was chiefly occupied in preparing two young men for the university. In 1879 he entered the law office of Judge S.G. Nye, and was admitted to partnership by him in May 1880, under the style of Nye & Richardson, which has continued to the present time, except the Judge withdrew from active practice from October, 1888, to February, 1890.
Mr. Richardson was married in Sacramento, to Miss Anna Bruce, born in Syracuse, New York, May 3, 1853, of Scotch parentage, an adopted daughter of Patrick Lynch, a salt miner of that city, and therefore better known as Miss Anna Lynch. Mr. and Mrs. Richardson have two children, Frances N., born August 12, 1883, and Girard N., born April 22, 1886.
Mr. Richardson is a member of the Alameda County Bar Association; is recognized as a trustworthy, careful and well-informed lawyer, more especially in the probate department of jurisprudence, of which the law firm of Nye & Richardson have made a specialty.
Transcribed
by David Rugeroni.
Source: "The
Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, Page 222, Lewis
Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2005 David Rugeroni.