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- Name auch Reichardt(name also Reichardt)
(Quelle/source: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=113879329)
AUGUSTINE RICHARDS, a large landowner and wealthy farmer of Lynn township, is a native of the German Empire, born in Saxony, September 23, 1834, and is the son of Wilhelm and Elizabeth (Menjen) Richards. The family lived in the village of Treffort, and there the subject of this sketch received hi education and there made his home until he had attained his twentieth year. His father was a driver of a four-horse stage, and the boy would often drive for the former. As he approached the years of manhood he entered the employ of a large beet-sugar manufactory, and remained there for two years. As an instance of the almost incredibly small wages paid in that land, it is cited that he received no higher salary than one dollar per week, and that was the prevailing rate paid their thousand workmen. In 1857 the subject of this memoir, seeing the impossibility of bettering his condition there, embarked for the united States, at the port of Bremen, and after a stormy and tempestuous passage of twenty-eight weeks, landed at New Orleans. From there he came North and found employment in Wisconsin at farm labor, and remained nearly five years with a Mr. Stockdale. He then rented a farm in that vicinity, and there lived until 1866, when he came to Minnesota. While he was away from home, threshing, that year, his house was destroyed by fire, a horse was killed by a vicious cow, the hail and bugs ruined the crops and he was compelled to sell off his cattle to obtain money with which to get to this State. On his arrival here he took up a homestead on section 20, Lynn township, and there lived until 1882, when he traded it for the Merchants' Hotel, at Hutchinson. Two years our subject was the landlord of that house, but thinking that he preferred farming, he traded it for 280 acres of unimproved land in Lynn township, on sections 31 and 32, and this he has developed until it is one of the finest in the town, and the improvements are of an excellent character. He now owns 440 acres.
Mr. Richards was united in marriage, March 2, 1862, with Miss Catherine Zegenfus, the daughter of John and Clara (Wedige) Zegenfus, natives of Prussia. The lady was born upon the bosom of the Atlantic Ocean, while her parents were on their way to the United States, May 21, 1845. By this union they are the parents of eight children -- John, born December 29, 1862; Victoria, born February 12, 1868; Caroline, born September 27, 1870, who married, June 4, 1888, Charles Reiner; Frederick W., born March 3, 1874; Rosa Catherine, born October 11, 1876; Anna, born June 28, 1881; August, born November 5, 1884; and Charles, born September 9, 1887.
Mr. Richards has held the offices of chairman of the town board and side supervisor, assessor and school director and treasurer. He is a democrat in his politics and a Roman Catholic in his religion.
Alden, Ogle & Company, . Illustrated Album of Biography of Meeker and McLeod Counties, Minnesota, History of Minnesota, Presidents of the United States.. Chicago: Donohue and Henneberry, 1888. 632-33. Print.
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