Matthias Richards (February 26, 1758 – August 4, 1830) was a member of the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

Early life and education

Matthias Richards was born near

Pottstown, Pennsylvania Pottstown is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Pottstown was laid out in 1752–53 and named Pottsgrove in honor of its founder, John Potts. The old name was abandoned at the time of the incorporation as a borough in 1815. In 1888 ...

. He had many siblings, including an older brother John Richards. His schooling was with a private tutoring, as was typical of many families then.

Revolutionary War

He enlisted and served during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

as a private in Col.

Daniel Udree Daniel Udree (August 5, 1751 – July 15, 1828) was a Democratic-Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Biography Born on August 5, 1751 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Udree was raised in comfortable s ...

's second battalion,

Berks County Berks County ( Pennsylvania German: ''Barricks Kaundi'') is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 428,849. The county seat is Reading. The Schuylkill River, a tributary of the Delaware River ...

Militia, from August 5, 1777, until January 5, 1778. He was commissioned a major of the Fourth Battalion,

Philadelphia County Philadelphia County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the most populous county in Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, Philadelphia County had a population of 1,603,797. The county is the second smallest county in Pennsyl ...

Militia in 1780.

Career

In 1788 Richards was appointed a

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

and held this office for forty years. He was appointed a judge of Berks County Courts (1791–1797) by

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Shulze, a nephew. After being elected to Congress, Richards was appointed an inspector of customs (1801–1802). He was appointed collector of revenue for the ninth district of Pennsylvania in 1813, and clerk of the orphans' court for Berks County in 1823. He also worked at mercantile pursuits in

Reading, Pennsylvania Reading ( ; Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Reddin'') is a city in and the county seat of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city had a population of 95,112 as of the 2020 census and is the fourth-largest city in Pennsylvania after Philade ...

, until his death there on August 4, 1830.

Marriage and family

Having become an artisan and saddler, Richards married Maria Salome Muhlenberg ("Sally"), then at age 15, on May 8, 1782. She was the youngest child of

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (an anglicanization of Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg) (September 6, 1711 – October 7, 1787), was a German Lutheran pastor sent to North America as a missionary, requested by Pennsylvania colonists. Integral to the ...

. Among their children was John William Richards, who became a minister. His son Matthias Henry Richards became a professor of English at

Muhlenberg College Muhlenberg College is a private liberal arts college in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1848, Muhlenberg College is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and is named for Henry Muhlenberg, the German patriarch of Luthera ...

in 1868. His grandson

Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards (February 27, 1825 – May 5, 1862) was an American military officer who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and then as a captain in the United States Navy during the Spanish–American Wa ...

was an American military officer who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and then as a Captain in the United States Navy during the Spanish–American War. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards also married a Van Leer whose family owned most of

at the time. This is where Richards was laid to rest and the city where he spent most of his life, and was interred at that city's

Charles Evans Cemetery Charles Evans Cemetery is an historic, nonsectarian, garden-style cemetery located in the city of Reading, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Charles Evans (1768-1847), a son of Quaker parents and native of Philadelphia who became a prominent attorne ...

Congress

Richards was elected as a

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party, known at the time as the Republican Party and also referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican Party among other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early ...

to the Tenth and

Eleventh In music or music theory, an eleventh is the note eleven scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the eleventh. The interval can be also described as a compound fourth, spanning an octave plus a f ...

Congresses. He did not stand for renomination in

1810 Events January–March * January 1 – Major-General Lachlan Macquarie officially becomes Governor of New South Wales. * January 4 – Australian seal hunter Frederick Hasselborough discovers Campbell Island, in the Subantarctic. * Janua ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, Matthias 1758 births 1830 deaths Burials at Charles Evans Cemetery Muhlenberg family Pennsylvania state court judges Pennsylvania militiamen in the American Revolution Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania