Byrd Richardson
Byrd Richardson was born in Montgomery County, Va., in 1809. He married Nancy Smiles, and moved to Shelby County, Ohio, in 1830, then moved to St. Johns, this county, in 1831. When they first came to St. Johns, the Indians were still on their reservation. Mrs. Richardson tells us that she has stayed many nights in the cabins with the Indians, has seen the stakes where it was said they tortured their prisoners. The Chief Blackhoof was buried on Mr. Richardson's farm. All the white people she can remember living near St. Johns, at that time, was James Coleman, Henry Princehonse, and John Rogers. The Indians left for their western homes the ensuing year. Mrs. Richardson could relate many singular incidents connected with the early history, had we the space to give them. They moved to Union township in 1833; from there to Wayne township in the spring of 1834, built a rail pen, and lived in it for six months, when they moved into their house. Mr. Richardson died in 1871. Mrs. Richardson raised a family of seven children, one son and six daughters. The son and one daughter died, leaving five daughters still living in Auglaize County. The father of Mr. Richardson lived to be one hundred and ten years of age, he having come to this county in 1830.
Mrs. Richardson still lives on the farm to which she first moved, and says her happiest days were those she spent among the Indians, and in the woods. She thinks the people were more honest and sociable than now. She says her husband made rails for twenty-five cents per hundred, and boarded himself.
From History of Auglaize County, Ohio, with the Indian History of Wapakoneta, and the First Settlement of the County, Robert Sutton, Publishers, Wapakoneta, 1880