Franklin D. Richards
Born: 2 April 1821
Called to Quorum of the Twelve: 12 February 1849
Became President of the Quorum of the Twelve: 13 September 1898
Died: 9 December 1899
Called to Quorum of the Twelve: 12 February 1849
Became President of the Quorum of the Twelve: 13 September 1898
Died: 9 December 1899
Biographical Articles
Biographical Encyclopedia, Volume 1
Biographical Encyclopedia, Volume 4
Juvenile Instructor, 15 December 1899, Death of President Franklin D. Richards
Improvement Era, January 1900, Death of President Franklin Dewey Richards
Juvenile Instructor, 1 January 1900, Apostle Franklin Dewey Richards
Young Woman's Journal, February 1900, Death of President Franklin Dewey Richards
Juvenile Instructor, 15 February 1900, Lives of Our Leaders - The Apostles: Franklin Dewey Richards
Young Woman's Journal, January 1917, From a Sermon by Apostle Franklin D. Richards
Biographical Encyclopedia, Volume 4
Juvenile Instructor, 15 December 1899, Death of President Franklin D. Richards
Improvement Era, January 1900, Death of President Franklin Dewey Richards
Juvenile Instructor, 1 January 1900, Apostle Franklin Dewey Richards
Young Woman's Journal, February 1900, Death of President Franklin Dewey Richards
Juvenile Instructor, 15 February 1900, Lives of Our Leaders - The Apostles: Franklin Dewey Richards
Young Woman's Journal, January 1917, From a Sermon by Apostle Franklin D. Richards
Jenson, Andrew. "Richards, Franklin Dewey" Biographical Encyclopedia. Volume 1. pg. 115-121.
RICHARDS. Franklin Dewey, a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles from 1849 to 1898, was the son of Phineas Richards and Wealthy Dewey, and was born in Richmond, Berkshire county, Mass., April 2, 1821. He was the fourth of his father's nine children. Being raised on a farm, he became at an early age accustomed to heavy labor, but used all the spare time he had for getting an education and laying up treasures of knowledge. Before he was ten years old, he had read every book in the Sunday school, comprising some scores of volumes, and when thirteen years old spent a winter at Lenox Academy. His parents, being devout and respected Congregationalists, trained their children in the pious way, and Franklin was early in life impressed with solemn views on religion. His ideas in regard to many scriptural points was, however, very different from those entertained by most other people, with whom he associated, and this caused him to decline a special offer made to him, to be educated for the ministry in a leading New England college. In the summer of 1836, Elders Joseph and Brigham Young came from Ohio to Richmond as messengers of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. They left a copy of the Book of Mormon with the Richards family and it was carefully and intelligently perused. Franklin brought all the ardor of his studious mind to bear upon it, and after having studied it carefully, accepted it as the truth and believed. In the autumn of that year (1836) Willard and Levi Richards went to Kirtland, Ohio, as delegates and leaders of the family to the truth. They accepted the gospel and remained. In the succeeding April, Phineas, with Franklin's younger brother, George Spencer—aged fourteen years—also journeyed to Kirtland. They in turn received and acknowledged the truth. In the autumn of 1837, Phineas returned to Richmond. He found Franklin awaiting baptism; and on the 3rd day of June, 1838, Phineas had the pleasure of immersing his son within the waters of Mill creek in Richmond, his native town. Franklin abandoned his employment, and left Richmond for Far West, Missouri, October 22, 1838. It was a lonely, tollsome journey. On the 30th of October he crossed the Alleghanies; and almost at the same hour, his beloved brother, George Spencer Richards, was slain by an assassin mob at Haun's Mill. But the news of his brother's tragic death, and the hideous stories of the "Mormon War," were alike powerless to restrain his purpose and he journeyed on eventfully. After visiting Far West and gaining confirmation of his faith, he found employment along the Mississippi river. In May, 1839, he first met the Prophet Joseph, and the following spring, April 9, 1840, he was ordained to the calling of a Seventy by Joseph Young, and was appointed to a mission in northern Indiana. He journeyed and preached with great success; established, by his own personal efforts, a branch of the Church in Porter county; and before he was twenty years of age delivered, at Plymouth, a series of public lectures which attracted much attention. The April conference for the year 1841 saw him at Nauvoo an adoring witness to the laying of the corner stone of the Temple; and at this eventful gathering he was called to renew his labors in the region of northern Indiana. In the summer of that year he was at La Porte, Indiana, sick nigh unto death, and yet determined to progress with his mission. He found consoling care in the kindly home of Isaac Snyder, and through several weeks he was nursed as a beloved son of the house. When the family of Father Snyder took on its march for Nauvoo, Franklin was carried back by them to the beautiful city, but soon after the succeeding October conference he was once more moving In the missionary field—this time being the companion of Phineas H. Young, in Cincinnati and its vicinity. He fortunately visited Father Snyder's family again in the summer of 1842, just as he was convalescing from an almost fatal attack of typhoid fever; and in December of that year he was wedded to the youngest daughter of the house—Jane Snyder, who is yet alive. He remained with the Saints at Nauvoo until the latter part of May, 1844. Having been ordained a High Priest by Brigham Young May 17, 1844, at Nauvoo, he was called to depart upon a mission to England. Accompanied by Apostle Brigham Young and others, he traveled to the Atlantic States, but before setting sail for Europe, he heard the dreadful news of the Carthage tragedy, and was called back to Nauvoo. The opening months of the next year, 1845, were spent by him in traveling more than a thousand miles among the branches of the Church in Michigan and elsewhere, to gather donations for the Temple.
He returned to Nauvoo with nearly five hundred dollars for this sacred purpose, and then was chosen by his Uncle Willard to be a scribe in the office of the Church Historian. He also labored through the spring of 1846 as carpenter and joiner in the lower main court of the Temple, until the structure was completed and dedicated—having previously received his endowments and participated in the administration of the sacred ordinances therein. When these duties were concluded and the time for the exodus had come, he sacrificed
the pleasant little home, built by his own toil, and with the meagre proceeds he purchased a wagon and cart and such few necessaries as he could compass for the use of his family—an invalid wife and baby girl. With the heroism of the martyrs, he saw his loved ones starting on that melancholy journey into the western wilderness. He committed them to the great Creator's care, and then he turned his face resolutely towards the East to fill his mission to England—without money or suflicient, to make his way by faith alone, across continent and ocean into a strange land. His younger brother Samuel was called to accompany him, and the two missionaries crossed the river to Nauvoo and slept the first night of their arduous journey In a deserted building there. The God whom they so unselfishly served, opened
their way; they pursued their journey via the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to Pittsburg and across the mountains to the coast; and on September 22, 1846, they sailed from New York in company with Apostle Parley P. Pratt and others. The last words which Franklin
received from the Camp of Israel, before the ship put to sea, was that his wife Jane, amidst all the privations of the exodus, was lying at the point of death—that a little son had been born to her, but the child had quietly expired upon its mother's devoted bosom. He landed in Liverpool October 14, 1846. A few days later he was appointed to preside over the mission in Scotland, with his brother Samuel as his assistant. Apostle Orson Hyde was at this epoch the president of the British mission and editor of the "'Millennial Star," though he was soon to depart for America and was to be succeeded by Elder Orson Spencer. But at the hour when the change was expected to be made, a false report of Elder Spencer's death reached Liverpool. The rumor was believed and Apostle Hyde appointed Franklin, then only twenty-one years old, to both of the positions which he, himself, was vacating, but just as he was entering upon his high trust Elder Spencer arrived in England. Franklin was then chosen to be one of his counselors: and during the subsequent serious illness of the president, Franklin was obliged to sustain the responsibilities and perform the duties of that calling. He labored there until Feb. 20, 1848, when he was appointed to take charge of a large company of Saints who were emigrating to the Rocky Mountains, crossing the Atlantic in the ship "Carnatic." During the time of Franklin's stay in the British Isles, the Saints there had been relieved of the treacherous "Joint Stock Company." The dishonest projectors of the despicable scheme had fled to other regions; and hope and confidence again held sway. But while all in the mission was prosperous, and the young Elder could justly feel proud and happy in the great work of proselyting, melancholy news came to him from the wilderness. His brother Joseph William Richards, a member of the Mormon Battalion, had succumbed to the rigors of the march and his wearied form had been laid in a lonely grave by the banks of the Arkansas river. Franklin's little daughter Wealthy had also died,and left his wife heartbroken, childless and alone. The homeward journey via New Orleans and St. Louis to Winter Quarters was completed by the middle of May, 1848, and there Franklin found his wife and such of their relatives as had
survived the perils and privations of the times. In June he was sent through western Iowa negotiating for cattle with which to move the company of Willard Richards across the plains to the Salt Lake basin. His effort was completely successful, and on the 5th of July the train started, with Franklin acting as captain over fifty wagons. The journey was a most distressful one to his wife. Much of the time it seemed as though each day would be her last. But they found kind and helpful friends who ministered to their wants; and on the 19th of October they entered the valley through Emigration canyon and camped in the fort, more grateful to God than words can express, to find a resting place for wearied frames worn with toil and sickness. Franklin sold his cloak and every other article of clothing which he could spare, and with the proceeds purchased building material. Before the violence of the winter was felt he was able to construct a small room of adobies without roof and without floor. From this rude mansion on the succeeding 12th day of February, he was called to receive
his ordination to the Apostleship. Heber C. Kimball was spokesman in his ordination. The young Apostle became immediately associated with the other leading minds of the community in the provisional government of Deseret in general legislative and ecclesiastical work, and the labors of creating a Perpetual Emigration Fund. In October, 1849, he was once more called to leave home, with its tender ties and its responsibilities of love, and renew his great missionary labor in the British Isles. He traveled in company with Apostles John Taylor, Lorenzo and Erastus Snow and others, and had a most eventful journey. Hostile Indians, inclement weather and turbulent, in streams, combined to delay and impede their progress. But the hand of Providence protected them, and the opening month of the year 1850 found them at St. Louis, visiting with dear old friends and brethren. This was among the grandest missionary movements in the history of the Church. Elder Taylor was on his way to France, Lorenzo and Erastus Snow were destined for Italy and Scandinavia, and Franklin was to officiate once more in the British Mission. Orson Pratt had been presiding and editing at Liverpool; but when Franklin arrived there, March 29. 1850. he found that the elder Apostle had been called on a hurried trip to Council Bluffs, and the "Star" contained a notification that during his absence Apostle Franklin D. Richards would preside over the Church affairs in Great Britain. The young president immediately began the establishment of the Perpetual Emigration Fund, and founded it upon a basis which has enabled its beneficent power to endure until the present day. Later in the season Orson Pratt returned to England, and Franklin relinquished his place as chief, and became Apostle Pratt's associate for a few months; but with the opening of the next year, 1851, Orson was called to the Valley, and Apostle Richards was instated as the president. Within twelve months following, his energy and zeal, with that of his brethren, had spread the truth with irresistible sway throughout the isles of Britain: while Franklin, with tireless hand and brain, doubled the business at the Liverpool office; revised and enlarged the Hymn Book and printed an edition of 25.000 copies; prepared his pamphlet, the Pearl of Great
Price; stereotyped the Book of Mormon and arranged for stereotyping the Doctrine and Covenants; issued a new edition of Parley P. Pratt's Voice of Warning: and devised a plan which made the "Star" a weekly instead of a semi-monthly periodical and increased the number of its issue He had also paid an interesting visit to Apostle Taylor at Paris, had sent to Zion the first company of Saints whose passage came through the Emigration Fund, and with Apostle Erastus Snow had made arrangements for the organization of a company to engage in the manufacture of iron in Utah In January, 1852, pursuant to advice from the First Presidency of the Church, who contemplated a visit from him to Great Salt Lake valley, he installed In the Liverpool office his brother Samuel, who had been formerly his associate during his ardent and successful Scottish ministry, in order to fit the younger Richards to maintain the increasing work in Franklin's temporary absence. The baptisms in the British Mission during these two years of Franklin's, stupendous labor, extending from the summer of 1850 to the close of spring in 1852, aggregated about sixteen thousand; while the perfected organization of conferences, branches, pastorates, etc., was commensurate with this marvelous increase. After exhaustive investigation Franklin rejected the theory
of emigrating the Saints by way of Panama to the California coast; and instead adopted the project of sending one ship to each of the three ports, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. The last received the decided preference, after the experiment; and the plan of voyage between Liverpool and Castle Garden, instituted by Apostle Franklin D. Richards for the European Saints, a half of a century since, is
still the universally favored route. He sailed from Liverpool for New York May 8, 1852, and arrived safely in Salt Lake City Aug. 20th. A few days later (Aug. 29th) he was attending the special conference held in Salt Lake City, at which was promulgated to the world the famous revelation, which Franklin had long before heard and received, upon the subject of the eternity and plurality of the marriage covenant in the Territorial legislative Assembly he renewed his labors as a lawmaker Dec. 13, 1852. In the opening of the year 1853, he participated in the dedication of the Temple grounds at Salt Lake City and also in laying its corner stones. In the succeeding month of July he journeyed with his wife Jan and their two children to Iron county to proceed with the establishing of the iron works, and on the trip encountered, but without any immediate disaster, several parties of hostile Indians. At Cedar City military orders were received from Governor Young and
Lieut.-General Wells, in view of Indian disturbances, and Franklin continued assiduously in the work of bringing in the outposts, changing the site of Cedar City, and fitting the people for the resistance of savage aggressions. He returned to his home in Salt Lake City, just in time to soothe the closing hours of his mother's life; but was again on the march for the iron region on the 22nd of October. His mission there accomplished, he came to Salt Lake City to take part through the winter in the legislative councils, and while thus engaged he was requested by Pres. Young to prepare for another mission to Europe. Just before departing for England, he held a family gathering, at which he set the example of dedicating his home and all he possessed to the Lord. He reached Liverpool in safety June 4, 1854. His letter of appointment from the First Presidency, published in the "Millennial Star," authorized him "to preside over all the conferences and all
the affairs of the Church in the British Islands and adjacent countries." This was the signal for the closer amalgamation of all the European missions under one head. He traveled on the Continent promoting peace and harmony as well as increase to the branches
there. Emigration facilities were perfected and enlarged. In 1S55 he engaged for the better accommodation of the growing business in Liverpool, the convenient premises known now as 42 Islington, which have been occupied as the chief offices of the Church in Europe from that day until the present time. In October of this year, the German Mission was originally established in Dresden under his personal direction—a mission which has yielded intelligence and numerical strength to the cause. His travels were constant and extended to nearly every part of western Europe—until he was probably better informed than any other man regarding the work in foreign lands. He gathered around him a most devoted band of American and foreign Elders; and the cause progressed amazingly. It was also within his province to direct the branches of the Church in the East Indies, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and other parts—making
altogether a sphere which no man could fill unless every ambition were centered in the cause. July 26, 1856, Pres. Richards, accompanied by Elder Cyrus H. Wheelock, sailed from Liverpool, homeward bound, on the steamer "Asia." At a meeting of the presidents of conferences, held in London previous to his departure, an affectionate and glowing tribute of esteem was unanimously dedicated to him. Oct. 4, 1856, he arrived once more in his mountain home, and in December became again a member of the Utah legislature. Jan. 5, 1857, he was again elected a regent of the University of Deseret. On Monday, April 20, 1857, he was elected and commissioned brigadier-general of the second brigade of infantry of the Nauvoo Legion. Soon afterwards he paid a visit of observation, with other dignitaries, to Fort Limhi (now in Idaho). When the coming of Johnston's army was announced, Brigadier-General Richards was called into council upon measures for public safety and defense; and later, was engaged with a detachment of men from his brigade in giving support to Lieut. -General Wells in Echo canyon. He, with other devoted citizens, left his valuable property under the charge of a trusty friend, who was to apply the torch and offer it all as a burning sacrifice before it should be seized or desecrated by the boastful invaders. And, after the tragic folly of the invasion was brought to its proper close, he, with others, received a somewhat unnecessary pardon from James
Buchanan, President of the United States. July 21. 1859, he began a political tour through southern Utah, to advise and arrange for the election of delegate to Congress; and immediately upon his return to Salt Lake City he departed with Elder John Taylor, to meet two companies of emigrants—many of whom were endeared by old and affectionate associations with Apostles Taylor and Richards. During
the years 1859-1866, his labors were multifarious; he was engaged in ecclesiastical, political, legislative, military and educational works—besides having a large family responsibility and such growing private interests of agriculture and mill building as his public duties would permit him to inaugurate. He was upon three occasions very ill, but each time he recuperated and renewed his labor with increased energy. July 29, 1866, he was once more appointed to England, and in a fortnight was on his journey. Arriving in Liverpool on the 11th of September following, he began the welcome and grateful labor of visiting the principal conferences of the European Mission; including the Scandinavian and other Continental conferences. In July, 1867, he was again instated as president of the European Mission. Once more he gathered a staff of enthusiastic Elders to his support, and in the year following, in Great Britain alone, 3,457 souls were baptized, and in the same length of time, from the same country, there were emigrated to Utah more than three thousand two hundred Saints. Always projecting his thoughts into the future to find means for advancing the work of God, he at this time decided that emigration by sailing vessels was inadequate for the needs of the renewed proselyting work in Europe. He, there fore, made the necessary changes—at
that early day not inconsiderable—and two large companies of Saints were sent out from Liverpool by the steamships "Minnesota" and "Colorado" bound for New York. This change from sailing vessels to steamships has continued till the present time. This was the last foreign mission of Apostle Richards, and his active work in the field had a fitting close. Eight times he had crossed the mighty deep and four eventful periods he had spent in the ministry abroad. His last effort had demonstrated that the soil of humanity in Europe would still produce rich fruits. Although his ardor as a missionary had not waned, his value as a home counselor had increased, and with the opening of the following year a new epoch was commenced in his career. He was elected probate judge of Weber county Feb. 19, 1869, and from that event Ogden and Weber county may date no small share of the worthy progress which has made them respectively, in importance, the second city and county of Utah. In May, 1869, Franklin D. Richards established his residence in Ogden. In all the intervening years he has been the presiding ecclesiastical authority of the Weber Stake of Zion. Many of his assistant laborers possessed a measure; of his own paramount quality of generous loyalty to the cause, and these men came readily to his support in the revival work of the home ministry. When he reached Ogden to attend his first term of court, the town had no newspaper; before a year had passed,
he established, and for a time edited, the Ogden "Junction," over which he exercised a guardian care for several years. Schools had been all that the people felt they could support, but they were still not up to a high grade; he wrote, preached and labored personally and with his accustomed success, to advance the educational interests of the people. The young people, in many cases, lacked cultured associations and ambition for education and refinement: he organized societies which were the heralds, if not the direct progenitors of the later Mutual Improvement Association which permeate the young and growing State of Utah, and he originated a plan by which the
youth of Weber county might hear, without cost, lectures by the best scientists and most talented orators of Utah. With the advent of the railway came an influx of worldly persons and sentiment; he taught the Saints how to preserve, from this rude aggression, their political and moral integrity, and he showed them by precept and example how to make home beautiful and home pleasures attractive for the
youth. He was probate and county judge of Weber county continuously from March 1, 1869, until Sept. 25, 1883. During this period of more than fourteen years, hundreds of suits for divorce and cases of estates for settlement were brought before him. In no single instance was his decision in these matters reversed by a higher tribunal. He adjudicated all the land titles in the important city of Ogden
and the populous towns of Huntsville, North Ogden and Plain City. No one of these adjudications has ever been set aside by any court. For the first five years, following his induction into office, his court had original and appellate jurisdiction in all common law and chancery cases; before him Were tried numerous civil suits, habeas corpus cases and trials of offenders charged with all crimes from misdemeanor
to murder. Not one single judgment or decree rendered by him in all this lengthy general judicial service was reversed on appeal. His justice and humanity, united with keen legal sense, made his name proverbial. In his administration of county financial affairs he was no less successful, aided by associates of shrewdness and integrity. During his regime the finest court house in Utah was erected in Ogden, roads and bridges innumerable were built; the only toll road in the county—extending through the magnificent Ogden canyon—was purchased and made free; taxes were kept low, but were collected promptly; the county was maintained clear of debt. His position
carried with it no salary. Although Apostle Richards always had a mass of business at home, he found time to travel and observe throughout the Territory. He continued, as he had previously been, when in Utah, a member of the successive legislative assemblies and constitutional conventions—in which his scholarship, legal lore, and patriotism made him conspicuous. In 1877 he traveled with Pres. Young to organize nearly all the Stakes of Zion; and attended the dedication of Temple sites and Temple buildings. After the death of Pres. Young, and especially since his own retirement from political life, Franklin was entirely immersed in the councils and labors of the Church. Towards the close of his official career Judge Richards became a party of one of the most important law suits, so far as the public is concerned, that was ever instituted in the Territory. In the summer of 1882 Congress passed what is known as the "Hoar Amendment" which authorized the governor of the Territory to fill vacancies caused by the failure to elect officers at the August election, 1882. Under
claim of authority from this act Governor Murray appointed some scores of persons to fill offices throughout the Territory, and among them, James N. Kimball was appointed to be probate judge of Weber county. After demanding the office from Franklin D. Richards, he commenced a mandamus suit to compel the relinquishment of the office and records to him. Franklin denied that there was any vacancy in the office because of the failure to hold the election, and insisted that he had the right, under his commission, to hold the office "until his successor was elected and qualified."- The district court decided in favor of Mr. Kimball, but an appeal was taken to the supreme court of the Territory, where the decision of the lower court was affirmed. The case was then taken to the supreme court of the United States, where it rested until the term expired for which Mr. Kimball was appointed, and until Judge Richards' successor was elected and qualified. This was a test case, and if it had not been contested with the determination and skill which characterized the defense, the result would have been the displacement of all the officers of the Territory by the governor's appointees, and the "Liberal Party" would have gained the political control of the Territory. This determined legal contest was a fitting close to the successful official career of Judge Richards and saved the Territory from political bondage. At the general conference of the Church held in April, 1889, Elder Richards was sustained as Church Historian and general Church Recorder, having previously acted as assistant historian for many years. This position he filled
with much devotion and faithfulness until his demise. In 1898, when Lorenzo Snow became President of the Church, Bro. Richards succeeded to the presidency of the Twelve Apostles and occupied that position until his death. He was endeared to his associates in
the Priesthood and the Saints generally because of his kind, affable manner. During the latter years of his life his time was chiefly occupied with historical and genealogical labors, but he visited many of the Stakes of Zion and remained zealous and industrious to the
last. In the fall of 1899 he became enfeebled, through strokes of paralysis, and after an illness of several weeks, accompanied by brief spells of apparent improvement, he passed quietly away at his home in Ogden, Utah, Dec. 9, 1899. Pres. Richards was noted for the kindness of his heart, the gentleness of his manners and his constant, unceasing devotion to the work of God. Among the glowing tributes of respect to his character and faith made at the time of his funeral, were the remarks by Pres. Joseph F. Smith, who said that
he had seen Pres. Richards under such trying ordeals that few could endure, but under which Bro. Richards has shown the patient submission, faith and devotion of Job, when he exclaimed, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." (See also "Historical Record,"
Vol. 6, p. 165; "Southern Star," Vol. 2, p. 377; Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine, Vol. 2, p. 577; "Juvenile Instructor," Vol. 35, p. 97.)
RICHARDS. Franklin Dewey, a member of the Council of Twelve Apostles from 1849 to 1898, was the son of Phineas Richards and Wealthy Dewey, and was born in Richmond, Berkshire county, Mass., April 2, 1821. He was the fourth of his father's nine children. Being raised on a farm, he became at an early age accustomed to heavy labor, but used all the spare time he had for getting an education and laying up treasures of knowledge. Before he was ten years old, he had read every book in the Sunday school, comprising some scores of volumes, and when thirteen years old spent a winter at Lenox Academy. His parents, being devout and respected Congregationalists, trained their children in the pious way, and Franklin was early in life impressed with solemn views on religion. His ideas in regard to many scriptural points was, however, very different from those entertained by most other people, with whom he associated, and this caused him to decline a special offer made to him, to be educated for the ministry in a leading New England college. In the summer of 1836, Elders Joseph and Brigham Young came from Ohio to Richmond as messengers of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. They left a copy of the Book of Mormon with the Richards family and it was carefully and intelligently perused. Franklin brought all the ardor of his studious mind to bear upon it, and after having studied it carefully, accepted it as the truth and believed. In the autumn of that year (1836) Willard and Levi Richards went to Kirtland, Ohio, as delegates and leaders of the family to the truth. They accepted the gospel and remained. In the succeeding April, Phineas, with Franklin's younger brother, George Spencer—aged fourteen years—also journeyed to Kirtland. They in turn received and acknowledged the truth. In the autumn of 1837, Phineas returned to Richmond. He found Franklin awaiting baptism; and on the 3rd day of June, 1838, Phineas had the pleasure of immersing his son within the waters of Mill creek in Richmond, his native town. Franklin abandoned his employment, and left Richmond for Far West, Missouri, October 22, 1838. It was a lonely, tollsome journey. On the 30th of October he crossed the Alleghanies; and almost at the same hour, his beloved brother, George Spencer Richards, was slain by an assassin mob at Haun's Mill. But the news of his brother's tragic death, and the hideous stories of the "Mormon War," were alike powerless to restrain his purpose and he journeyed on eventfully. After visiting Far West and gaining confirmation of his faith, he found employment along the Mississippi river. In May, 1839, he first met the Prophet Joseph, and the following spring, April 9, 1840, he was ordained to the calling of a Seventy by Joseph Young, and was appointed to a mission in northern Indiana. He journeyed and preached with great success; established, by his own personal efforts, a branch of the Church in Porter county; and before he was twenty years of age delivered, at Plymouth, a series of public lectures which attracted much attention. The April conference for the year 1841 saw him at Nauvoo an adoring witness to the laying of the corner stone of the Temple; and at this eventful gathering he was called to renew his labors in the region of northern Indiana. In the summer of that year he was at La Porte, Indiana, sick nigh unto death, and yet determined to progress with his mission. He found consoling care in the kindly home of Isaac Snyder, and through several weeks he was nursed as a beloved son of the house. When the family of Father Snyder took on its march for Nauvoo, Franklin was carried back by them to the beautiful city, but soon after the succeeding October conference he was once more moving In the missionary field—this time being the companion of Phineas H. Young, in Cincinnati and its vicinity. He fortunately visited Father Snyder's family again in the summer of 1842, just as he was convalescing from an almost fatal attack of typhoid fever; and in December of that year he was wedded to the youngest daughter of the house—Jane Snyder, who is yet alive. He remained with the Saints at Nauvoo until the latter part of May, 1844. Having been ordained a High Priest by Brigham Young May 17, 1844, at Nauvoo, he was called to depart upon a mission to England. Accompanied by Apostle Brigham Young and others, he traveled to the Atlantic States, but before setting sail for Europe, he heard the dreadful news of the Carthage tragedy, and was called back to Nauvoo. The opening months of the next year, 1845, were spent by him in traveling more than a thousand miles among the branches of the Church in Michigan and elsewhere, to gather donations for the Temple.
He returned to Nauvoo with nearly five hundred dollars for this sacred purpose, and then was chosen by his Uncle Willard to be a scribe in the office of the Church Historian. He also labored through the spring of 1846 as carpenter and joiner in the lower main court of the Temple, until the structure was completed and dedicated—having previously received his endowments and participated in the administration of the sacred ordinances therein. When these duties were concluded and the time for the exodus had come, he sacrificed
the pleasant little home, built by his own toil, and with the meagre proceeds he purchased a wagon and cart and such few necessaries as he could compass for the use of his family—an invalid wife and baby girl. With the heroism of the martyrs, he saw his loved ones starting on that melancholy journey into the western wilderness. He committed them to the great Creator's care, and then he turned his face resolutely towards the East to fill his mission to England—without money or suflicient, to make his way by faith alone, across continent and ocean into a strange land. His younger brother Samuel was called to accompany him, and the two missionaries crossed the river to Nauvoo and slept the first night of their arduous journey In a deserted building there. The God whom they so unselfishly served, opened
their way; they pursued their journey via the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to Pittsburg and across the mountains to the coast; and on September 22, 1846, they sailed from New York in company with Apostle Parley P. Pratt and others. The last words which Franklin
received from the Camp of Israel, before the ship put to sea, was that his wife Jane, amidst all the privations of the exodus, was lying at the point of death—that a little son had been born to her, but the child had quietly expired upon its mother's devoted bosom. He landed in Liverpool October 14, 1846. A few days later he was appointed to preside over the mission in Scotland, with his brother Samuel as his assistant. Apostle Orson Hyde was at this epoch the president of the British mission and editor of the "'Millennial Star," though he was soon to depart for America and was to be succeeded by Elder Orson Spencer. But at the hour when the change was expected to be made, a false report of Elder Spencer's death reached Liverpool. The rumor was believed and Apostle Hyde appointed Franklin, then only twenty-one years old, to both of the positions which he, himself, was vacating, but just as he was entering upon his high trust Elder Spencer arrived in England. Franklin was then chosen to be one of his counselors: and during the subsequent serious illness of the president, Franklin was obliged to sustain the responsibilities and perform the duties of that calling. He labored there until Feb. 20, 1848, when he was appointed to take charge of a large company of Saints who were emigrating to the Rocky Mountains, crossing the Atlantic in the ship "Carnatic." During the time of Franklin's stay in the British Isles, the Saints there had been relieved of the treacherous "Joint Stock Company." The dishonest projectors of the despicable scheme had fled to other regions; and hope and confidence again held sway. But while all in the mission was prosperous, and the young Elder could justly feel proud and happy in the great work of proselyting, melancholy news came to him from the wilderness. His brother Joseph William Richards, a member of the Mormon Battalion, had succumbed to the rigors of the march and his wearied form had been laid in a lonely grave by the banks of the Arkansas river. Franklin's little daughter Wealthy had also died,and left his wife heartbroken, childless and alone. The homeward journey via New Orleans and St. Louis to Winter Quarters was completed by the middle of May, 1848, and there Franklin found his wife and such of their relatives as had
survived the perils and privations of the times. In June he was sent through western Iowa negotiating for cattle with which to move the company of Willard Richards across the plains to the Salt Lake basin. His effort was completely successful, and on the 5th of July the train started, with Franklin acting as captain over fifty wagons. The journey was a most distressful one to his wife. Much of the time it seemed as though each day would be her last. But they found kind and helpful friends who ministered to their wants; and on the 19th of October they entered the valley through Emigration canyon and camped in the fort, more grateful to God than words can express, to find a resting place for wearied frames worn with toil and sickness. Franklin sold his cloak and every other article of clothing which he could spare, and with the proceeds purchased building material. Before the violence of the winter was felt he was able to construct a small room of adobies without roof and without floor. From this rude mansion on the succeeding 12th day of February, he was called to receive
his ordination to the Apostleship. Heber C. Kimball was spokesman in his ordination. The young Apostle became immediately associated with the other leading minds of the community in the provisional government of Deseret in general legislative and ecclesiastical work, and the labors of creating a Perpetual Emigration Fund. In October, 1849, he was once more called to leave home, with its tender ties and its responsibilities of love, and renew his great missionary labor in the British Isles. He traveled in company with Apostles John Taylor, Lorenzo and Erastus Snow and others, and had a most eventful journey. Hostile Indians, inclement weather and turbulent, in streams, combined to delay and impede their progress. But the hand of Providence protected them, and the opening month of the year 1850 found them at St. Louis, visiting with dear old friends and brethren. This was among the grandest missionary movements in the history of the Church. Elder Taylor was on his way to France, Lorenzo and Erastus Snow were destined for Italy and Scandinavia, and Franklin was to officiate once more in the British Mission. Orson Pratt had been presiding and editing at Liverpool; but when Franklin arrived there, March 29. 1850. he found that the elder Apostle had been called on a hurried trip to Council Bluffs, and the "Star" contained a notification that during his absence Apostle Franklin D. Richards would preside over the Church affairs in Great Britain. The young president immediately began the establishment of the Perpetual Emigration Fund, and founded it upon a basis which has enabled its beneficent power to endure until the present day. Later in the season Orson Pratt returned to England, and Franklin relinquished his place as chief, and became Apostle Pratt's associate for a few months; but with the opening of the next year, 1851, Orson was called to the Valley, and Apostle Richards was instated as the president. Within twelve months following, his energy and zeal, with that of his brethren, had spread the truth with irresistible sway throughout the isles of Britain: while Franklin, with tireless hand and brain, doubled the business at the Liverpool office; revised and enlarged the Hymn Book and printed an edition of 25.000 copies; prepared his pamphlet, the Pearl of Great
Price; stereotyped the Book of Mormon and arranged for stereotyping the Doctrine and Covenants; issued a new edition of Parley P. Pratt's Voice of Warning: and devised a plan which made the "Star" a weekly instead of a semi-monthly periodical and increased the number of its issue He had also paid an interesting visit to Apostle Taylor at Paris, had sent to Zion the first company of Saints whose passage came through the Emigration Fund, and with Apostle Erastus Snow had made arrangements for the organization of a company to engage in the manufacture of iron in Utah In January, 1852, pursuant to advice from the First Presidency of the Church, who contemplated a visit from him to Great Salt Lake valley, he installed In the Liverpool office his brother Samuel, who had been formerly his associate during his ardent and successful Scottish ministry, in order to fit the younger Richards to maintain the increasing work in Franklin's temporary absence. The baptisms in the British Mission during these two years of Franklin's, stupendous labor, extending from the summer of 1850 to the close of spring in 1852, aggregated about sixteen thousand; while the perfected organization of conferences, branches, pastorates, etc., was commensurate with this marvelous increase. After exhaustive investigation Franklin rejected the theory
of emigrating the Saints by way of Panama to the California coast; and instead adopted the project of sending one ship to each of the three ports, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. The last received the decided preference, after the experiment; and the plan of voyage between Liverpool and Castle Garden, instituted by Apostle Franklin D. Richards for the European Saints, a half of a century since, is
still the universally favored route. He sailed from Liverpool for New York May 8, 1852, and arrived safely in Salt Lake City Aug. 20th. A few days later (Aug. 29th) he was attending the special conference held in Salt Lake City, at which was promulgated to the world the famous revelation, which Franklin had long before heard and received, upon the subject of the eternity and plurality of the marriage covenant in the Territorial legislative Assembly he renewed his labors as a lawmaker Dec. 13, 1852. In the opening of the year 1853, he participated in the dedication of the Temple grounds at Salt Lake City and also in laying its corner stones. In the succeeding month of July he journeyed with his wife Jan and their two children to Iron county to proceed with the establishing of the iron works, and on the trip encountered, but without any immediate disaster, several parties of hostile Indians. At Cedar City military orders were received from Governor Young and
Lieut.-General Wells, in view of Indian disturbances, and Franklin continued assiduously in the work of bringing in the outposts, changing the site of Cedar City, and fitting the people for the resistance of savage aggressions. He returned to his home in Salt Lake City, just in time to soothe the closing hours of his mother's life; but was again on the march for the iron region on the 22nd of October. His mission there accomplished, he came to Salt Lake City to take part through the winter in the legislative councils, and while thus engaged he was requested by Pres. Young to prepare for another mission to Europe. Just before departing for England, he held a family gathering, at which he set the example of dedicating his home and all he possessed to the Lord. He reached Liverpool in safety June 4, 1854. His letter of appointment from the First Presidency, published in the "Millennial Star," authorized him "to preside over all the conferences and all
the affairs of the Church in the British Islands and adjacent countries." This was the signal for the closer amalgamation of all the European missions under one head. He traveled on the Continent promoting peace and harmony as well as increase to the branches
there. Emigration facilities were perfected and enlarged. In 1S55 he engaged for the better accommodation of the growing business in Liverpool, the convenient premises known now as 42 Islington, which have been occupied as the chief offices of the Church in Europe from that day until the present time. In October of this year, the German Mission was originally established in Dresden under his personal direction—a mission which has yielded intelligence and numerical strength to the cause. His travels were constant and extended to nearly every part of western Europe—until he was probably better informed than any other man regarding the work in foreign lands. He gathered around him a most devoted band of American and foreign Elders; and the cause progressed amazingly. It was also within his province to direct the branches of the Church in the East Indies, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and other parts—making
altogether a sphere which no man could fill unless every ambition were centered in the cause. July 26, 1856, Pres. Richards, accompanied by Elder Cyrus H. Wheelock, sailed from Liverpool, homeward bound, on the steamer "Asia." At a meeting of the presidents of conferences, held in London previous to his departure, an affectionate and glowing tribute of esteem was unanimously dedicated to him. Oct. 4, 1856, he arrived once more in his mountain home, and in December became again a member of the Utah legislature. Jan. 5, 1857, he was again elected a regent of the University of Deseret. On Monday, April 20, 1857, he was elected and commissioned brigadier-general of the second brigade of infantry of the Nauvoo Legion. Soon afterwards he paid a visit of observation, with other dignitaries, to Fort Limhi (now in Idaho). When the coming of Johnston's army was announced, Brigadier-General Richards was called into council upon measures for public safety and defense; and later, was engaged with a detachment of men from his brigade in giving support to Lieut. -General Wells in Echo canyon. He, with other devoted citizens, left his valuable property under the charge of a trusty friend, who was to apply the torch and offer it all as a burning sacrifice before it should be seized or desecrated by the boastful invaders. And, after the tragic folly of the invasion was brought to its proper close, he, with others, received a somewhat unnecessary pardon from James
Buchanan, President of the United States. July 21. 1859, he began a political tour through southern Utah, to advise and arrange for the election of delegate to Congress; and immediately upon his return to Salt Lake City he departed with Elder John Taylor, to meet two companies of emigrants—many of whom were endeared by old and affectionate associations with Apostles Taylor and Richards. During
the years 1859-1866, his labors were multifarious; he was engaged in ecclesiastical, political, legislative, military and educational works—besides having a large family responsibility and such growing private interests of agriculture and mill building as his public duties would permit him to inaugurate. He was upon three occasions very ill, but each time he recuperated and renewed his labor with increased energy. July 29, 1866, he was once more appointed to England, and in a fortnight was on his journey. Arriving in Liverpool on the 11th of September following, he began the welcome and grateful labor of visiting the principal conferences of the European Mission; including the Scandinavian and other Continental conferences. In July, 1867, he was again instated as president of the European Mission. Once more he gathered a staff of enthusiastic Elders to his support, and in the year following, in Great Britain alone, 3,457 souls were baptized, and in the same length of time, from the same country, there were emigrated to Utah more than three thousand two hundred Saints. Always projecting his thoughts into the future to find means for advancing the work of God, he at this time decided that emigration by sailing vessels was inadequate for the needs of the renewed proselyting work in Europe. He, there fore, made the necessary changes—at
that early day not inconsiderable—and two large companies of Saints were sent out from Liverpool by the steamships "Minnesota" and "Colorado" bound for New York. This change from sailing vessels to steamships has continued till the present time. This was the last foreign mission of Apostle Richards, and his active work in the field had a fitting close. Eight times he had crossed the mighty deep and four eventful periods he had spent in the ministry abroad. His last effort had demonstrated that the soil of humanity in Europe would still produce rich fruits. Although his ardor as a missionary had not waned, his value as a home counselor had increased, and with the opening of the following year a new epoch was commenced in his career. He was elected probate judge of Weber county Feb. 19, 1869, and from that event Ogden and Weber county may date no small share of the worthy progress which has made them respectively, in importance, the second city and county of Utah. In May, 1869, Franklin D. Richards established his residence in Ogden. In all the intervening years he has been the presiding ecclesiastical authority of the Weber Stake of Zion. Many of his assistant laborers possessed a measure; of his own paramount quality of generous loyalty to the cause, and these men came readily to his support in the revival work of the home ministry. When he reached Ogden to attend his first term of court, the town had no newspaper; before a year had passed,
he established, and for a time edited, the Ogden "Junction," over which he exercised a guardian care for several years. Schools had been all that the people felt they could support, but they were still not up to a high grade; he wrote, preached and labored personally and with his accustomed success, to advance the educational interests of the people. The young people, in many cases, lacked cultured associations and ambition for education and refinement: he organized societies which were the heralds, if not the direct progenitors of the later Mutual Improvement Association which permeate the young and growing State of Utah, and he originated a plan by which the
youth of Weber county might hear, without cost, lectures by the best scientists and most talented orators of Utah. With the advent of the railway came an influx of worldly persons and sentiment; he taught the Saints how to preserve, from this rude aggression, their political and moral integrity, and he showed them by precept and example how to make home beautiful and home pleasures attractive for the
youth. He was probate and county judge of Weber county continuously from March 1, 1869, until Sept. 25, 1883. During this period of more than fourteen years, hundreds of suits for divorce and cases of estates for settlement were brought before him. In no single instance was his decision in these matters reversed by a higher tribunal. He adjudicated all the land titles in the important city of Ogden
and the populous towns of Huntsville, North Ogden and Plain City. No one of these adjudications has ever been set aside by any court. For the first five years, following his induction into office, his court had original and appellate jurisdiction in all common law and chancery cases; before him Were tried numerous civil suits, habeas corpus cases and trials of offenders charged with all crimes from misdemeanor
to murder. Not one single judgment or decree rendered by him in all this lengthy general judicial service was reversed on appeal. His justice and humanity, united with keen legal sense, made his name proverbial. In his administration of county financial affairs he was no less successful, aided by associates of shrewdness and integrity. During his regime the finest court house in Utah was erected in Ogden, roads and bridges innumerable were built; the only toll road in the county—extending through the magnificent Ogden canyon—was purchased and made free; taxes were kept low, but were collected promptly; the county was maintained clear of debt. His position
carried with it no salary. Although Apostle Richards always had a mass of business at home, he found time to travel and observe throughout the Territory. He continued, as he had previously been, when in Utah, a member of the successive legislative assemblies and constitutional conventions—in which his scholarship, legal lore, and patriotism made him conspicuous. In 1877 he traveled with Pres. Young to organize nearly all the Stakes of Zion; and attended the dedication of Temple sites and Temple buildings. After the death of Pres. Young, and especially since his own retirement from political life, Franklin was entirely immersed in the councils and labors of the Church. Towards the close of his official career Judge Richards became a party of one of the most important law suits, so far as the public is concerned, that was ever instituted in the Territory. In the summer of 1882 Congress passed what is known as the "Hoar Amendment" which authorized the governor of the Territory to fill vacancies caused by the failure to elect officers at the August election, 1882. Under
claim of authority from this act Governor Murray appointed some scores of persons to fill offices throughout the Territory, and among them, James N. Kimball was appointed to be probate judge of Weber county. After demanding the office from Franklin D. Richards, he commenced a mandamus suit to compel the relinquishment of the office and records to him. Franklin denied that there was any vacancy in the office because of the failure to hold the election, and insisted that he had the right, under his commission, to hold the office "until his successor was elected and qualified."- The district court decided in favor of Mr. Kimball, but an appeal was taken to the supreme court of the Territory, where the decision of the lower court was affirmed. The case was then taken to the supreme court of the United States, where it rested until the term expired for which Mr. Kimball was appointed, and until Judge Richards' successor was elected and qualified. This was a test case, and if it had not been contested with the determination and skill which characterized the defense, the result would have been the displacement of all the officers of the Territory by the governor's appointees, and the "Liberal Party" would have gained the political control of the Territory. This determined legal contest was a fitting close to the successful official career of Judge Richards and saved the Territory from political bondage. At the general conference of the Church held in April, 1889, Elder Richards was sustained as Church Historian and general Church Recorder, having previously acted as assistant historian for many years. This position he filled
with much devotion and faithfulness until his demise. In 1898, when Lorenzo Snow became President of the Church, Bro. Richards succeeded to the presidency of the Twelve Apostles and occupied that position until his death. He was endeared to his associates in
the Priesthood and the Saints generally because of his kind, affable manner. During the latter years of his life his time was chiefly occupied with historical and genealogical labors, but he visited many of the Stakes of Zion and remained zealous and industrious to the
last. In the fall of 1899 he became enfeebled, through strokes of paralysis, and after an illness of several weeks, accompanied by brief spells of apparent improvement, he passed quietly away at his home in Ogden, Utah, Dec. 9, 1899. Pres. Richards was noted for the kindness of his heart, the gentleness of his manners and his constant, unceasing devotion to the work of God. Among the glowing tributes of respect to his character and faith made at the time of his funeral, were the remarks by Pres. Joseph F. Smith, who said that
he had seen Pres. Richards under such trying ordeals that few could endure, but under which Bro. Richards has shown the patient submission, faith and devotion of Job, when he exclaimed, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." (See also "Historical Record,"
Vol. 6, p. 165; "Southern Star," Vol. 2, p. 377; Tullidge's Quarterly Magazine, Vol. 2, p. 577; "Juvenile Instructor," Vol. 35, p. 97.)
Jenson, Andrew. "Richards, Franklin D." Biographical Encyclopedia. Volume 4. pg. 317, 685-686.
RICHARDS, Franklin D., president of the British Mission from January to February, 1847, from 1851 to 1852, from 1854 to 1856, and from 1867 to 1868, (See Bio. Ency., Vol. 1, p. 115.)
RICHARDS, Franklin Dewey, president of the Genealogical Society of Utah from 1894 to 1899, was born April 2, 1821, in Richmond, Berkshire Co., Mass., and died Dec. 9, 1899, in Ogden, Utah, as one of the Twelve Apostles. (See Bio. Ency., Vol. 1, p. 115.)
RICHARDS, Franklin D., president of the British Mission from January to February, 1847, from 1851 to 1852, from 1854 to 1856, and from 1867 to 1868, (See Bio. Ency., Vol. 1, p. 115.)
RICHARDS, Franklin Dewey, president of the Genealogical Society of Utah from 1894 to 1899, was born April 2, 1821, in Richmond, Berkshire Co., Mass., and died Dec. 9, 1899, in Ogden, Utah, as one of the Twelve Apostles. (See Bio. Ency., Vol. 1, p. 115.)
"Death of President Franklin D. Richards." Juvenile Instructor. 15 December 1899. pg. 770-771.
DEATH OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. RICHARDS.
In the death of Franklin Dewey Richards, President of the Twelve Apostles, which sad event occurred in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 9th, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints loses a valued and valiant representative. He has been identified with it during practically the entire period of his long life, and has been diligent, ever since his youth, in seeking to promote its welfare. As missionary, as counselor, as writer, as preacher, as historian and as Apostle, he has labored in a busy field, his zeal and industry continuing to the end. To the soundness of his judgment, the purity of his character, the kindness of his heart, and the excellence of his gifts as speaker and writer, he added also a most amiable and engaging personality. He was indeed a lovable man—suave, affectionate, and full of generosity and forgiveness. A notable trait in him was the invariable charity with which he spoke of others. During all our long and intimate acquaintance with him we do not remember a single instance where he spoke unkindly of any one. He was always gentle and generous, even in referring to an enemy; and if his words may be taken as an indication of his heart — as in the case of most people they may be—he was not one who at any time assumed or desired to pass judgment upon others. If he could not speak well of a person, he did not speak at all; and whoever thought to please him by harsh criticism or faultfinding or evil-speaking of others, and perhaps expected to obtain from him an endorsement of the views expressed, was certain to come away disappointed. More than almost any other man we ever met, he possessed and displayed this admirable quality. It was one of his most striking characteristics, and is one so desirable that we wish to make it prominent as an example for others to follow.
His devotion to the cause of God, his uprightness of character, and his spotless purity all his life have marked him as a true nobleman among the children of our Father. He loved his fellowmen, and was untiring in his labors and constant in his desires for the progress of humanity. The value of the example and influence which the life of such a man exerts upon a community cannot be estimated. Every good person who knows him is made better by the acquaintance; even the wicked are compelled to admit his fine qualities, and must at times feel to profit from his goodness. So it is that the world is better for his having lived. The Church to which he gave his adherence in his young manhood, and whose welfare he sought all his days, will miss his sterling qualities, and the Saints will mourn the loss of his genial presence and his fatherly kindness. But he has earned his rest, and his memory will live in affection and honor in the hearts of the Saints forever.
A sketch of President Richards' life and character—one of the series entitled "Lives of the Apostles"—will appear, with one of his latest portraits, in Number Four of the next Volume of this magazine. We omit at this time, therefore, any detailed particulars as to his eventful history and life's work. But we cannot forbear this tribute to his goodness and his worth, nor pass unemployed the opportunity to hold him forth as one of the best and brightest lights of this generation of mankind—a pattern of humility, gentleness, purity and righteousness which no one can study without pleasure nor follow without benefit.
DEATH OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. RICHARDS.
In the death of Franklin Dewey Richards, President of the Twelve Apostles, which sad event occurred in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 9th, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints loses a valued and valiant representative. He has been identified with it during practically the entire period of his long life, and has been diligent, ever since his youth, in seeking to promote its welfare. As missionary, as counselor, as writer, as preacher, as historian and as Apostle, he has labored in a busy field, his zeal and industry continuing to the end. To the soundness of his judgment, the purity of his character, the kindness of his heart, and the excellence of his gifts as speaker and writer, he added also a most amiable and engaging personality. He was indeed a lovable man—suave, affectionate, and full of generosity and forgiveness. A notable trait in him was the invariable charity with which he spoke of others. During all our long and intimate acquaintance with him we do not remember a single instance where he spoke unkindly of any one. He was always gentle and generous, even in referring to an enemy; and if his words may be taken as an indication of his heart — as in the case of most people they may be—he was not one who at any time assumed or desired to pass judgment upon others. If he could not speak well of a person, he did not speak at all; and whoever thought to please him by harsh criticism or faultfinding or evil-speaking of others, and perhaps expected to obtain from him an endorsement of the views expressed, was certain to come away disappointed. More than almost any other man we ever met, he possessed and displayed this admirable quality. It was one of his most striking characteristics, and is one so desirable that we wish to make it prominent as an example for others to follow.
His devotion to the cause of God, his uprightness of character, and his spotless purity all his life have marked him as a true nobleman among the children of our Father. He loved his fellowmen, and was untiring in his labors and constant in his desires for the progress of humanity. The value of the example and influence which the life of such a man exerts upon a community cannot be estimated. Every good person who knows him is made better by the acquaintance; even the wicked are compelled to admit his fine qualities, and must at times feel to profit from his goodness. So it is that the world is better for his having lived. The Church to which he gave his adherence in his young manhood, and whose welfare he sought all his days, will miss his sterling qualities, and the Saints will mourn the loss of his genial presence and his fatherly kindness. But he has earned his rest, and his memory will live in affection and honor in the hearts of the Saints forever.
A sketch of President Richards' life and character—one of the series entitled "Lives of the Apostles"—will appear, with one of his latest portraits, in Number Four of the next Volume of this magazine. We omit at this time, therefore, any detailed particulars as to his eventful history and life's work. But we cannot forbear this tribute to his goodness and his worth, nor pass unemployed the opportunity to hold him forth as one of the best and brightest lights of this generation of mankind—a pattern of humility, gentleness, purity and righteousness which no one can study without pleasure nor follow without benefit.
"Death of President Franklin Dewey Richards." Improvement Era. January 1900. pg. 220-221.
DEATH OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DEWEY RICHARDS.
Just fourteen minutes after midnight, on the morning of December 9, 1899, Apostle Franklin Dewey Richards, President of the quorum of Twelve Apostles of The Church, died at his home in Ogden. He was born at Richmond, Massachusetts, April 2, 1821, and was the son of Phineas and Wealthy Richards. He was baptized by his father, in 1836, was ordained a seventy in 1839, an apostle in 1849, and became president of the quorum of Twelve Apostles when Apostle Lorenzo Snow was chosen President of The Church, in 1898. He was buried in the Ogden Cemetery, his funeral being attended by President Snow, the Twelve, and large concourses of people.
He filled many missions at home and in foreign lands, and his name is familiar to the Saints in all the world. It may truly be said that he served the people all his days, and that, too, in both a religious and a civil capacity. He held the important office of probate judge in Weber County from 1869 to 1883. Among his other labors he was historian of The Church, and in this capacity did much to preserve valuable data, civil and ecclesiastical. He was also the president of the State Historical Society.
He was among the first to recognize the value of mutual improvement among the young people, and established and presided over a successful association in Ogden two years before the general movement was inaugurated forming these associations in 1875. He was ever after interested in them, and was a dear friend to the youth of Zion.
He was an ideal Latter-day Saint. Kind, fatherly, loving— a man who won the respect and confidence of all who knew him. When he spoke, all listened as to one who would utter only that which was good, and which would grieve none. He was thoroughly in accord with the spirit of Joseph Smith, his very being vibrating with the testimony of the prophet's divine mission.
One of the sweet traits of Brother Franklin's character was the exemplification in his life of the saying of Job: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." He bowed always to the will of God, and endured much, but by such humility and endurance set an example that has strengthened others to bear more joyfully their burdens of life, and to yield instead of breaking into pieces. He was for Zion, true and faithful under all circumstances, and was one of the noblemen of the human race. If such as he are not exalted in the presence of the Lord, who then on earth will ever gain a glory? Thousands will remember his fatherly advice, his interested friendship, his kind words, his respect for authority and his deference for the servants of the Lord; and so remembering, will be better, and happier, and more charitable and loving, because Brother Franklin lived.
The Church will greatly miss him, and in every home in Zion there will be felt an indescribable loss, as when one who is dearly loved has said his last good night. His example will shine out like a beacon light, and well may we all exclaim: "You may count me with him. I wish to be with him, to associate with such as he, in the Kingdom of God throughout the ages of eternity." His memory, his character, his works, will be an inspiration to the living of noble lives by all who learn of him or knew him.
DEATH OF PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DEWEY RICHARDS.
Just fourteen minutes after midnight, on the morning of December 9, 1899, Apostle Franklin Dewey Richards, President of the quorum of Twelve Apostles of The Church, died at his home in Ogden. He was born at Richmond, Massachusetts, April 2, 1821, and was the son of Phineas and Wealthy Richards. He was baptized by his father, in 1836, was ordained a seventy in 1839, an apostle in 1849, and became president of the quorum of Twelve Apostles when Apostle Lorenzo Snow was chosen President of The Church, in 1898. He was buried in the Ogden Cemetery, his funeral being attended by President Snow, the Twelve, and large concourses of people.
He filled many missions at home and in foreign lands, and his name is familiar to the Saints in all the world. It may truly be said that he served the people all his days, and that, too, in both a religious and a civil capacity. He held the important office of probate judge in Weber County from 1869 to 1883. Among his other labors he was historian of The Church, and in this capacity did much to preserve valuable data, civil and ecclesiastical. He was also the president of the State Historical Society.
He was among the first to recognize the value of mutual improvement among the young people, and established and presided over a successful association in Ogden two years before the general movement was inaugurated forming these associations in 1875. He was ever after interested in them, and was a dear friend to the youth of Zion.
He was an ideal Latter-day Saint. Kind, fatherly, loving— a man who won the respect and confidence of all who knew him. When he spoke, all listened as to one who would utter only that which was good, and which would grieve none. He was thoroughly in accord with the spirit of Joseph Smith, his very being vibrating with the testimony of the prophet's divine mission.
One of the sweet traits of Brother Franklin's character was the exemplification in his life of the saying of Job: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." He bowed always to the will of God, and endured much, but by such humility and endurance set an example that has strengthened others to bear more joyfully their burdens of life, and to yield instead of breaking into pieces. He was for Zion, true and faithful under all circumstances, and was one of the noblemen of the human race. If such as he are not exalted in the presence of the Lord, who then on earth will ever gain a glory? Thousands will remember his fatherly advice, his interested friendship, his kind words, his respect for authority and his deference for the servants of the Lord; and so remembering, will be better, and happier, and more charitable and loving, because Brother Franklin lived.
The Church will greatly miss him, and in every home in Zion there will be felt an indescribable loss, as when one who is dearly loved has said his last good night. His example will shine out like a beacon light, and well may we all exclaim: "You may count me with him. I wish to be with him, to associate with such as he, in the Kingdom of God throughout the ages of eternity." His memory, his character, his works, will be an inspiration to the living of noble lives by all who learn of him or knew him.
Richards, L. L. Greene. “Apostle Franklin Dewey Richards.” Juvenile Instructor. 1 January 1900. pg. 26.
APOSTLE FRANKLIN DEWEY RICHARDS.
Called to great, important missions,
Even while a beardless youth;
F. D. Richards proved most loyal
To the holy cause of Truth.
Faithful, true, in every station,
Through a long, eventful life;
Shall we grudge him now the passport.
From this world of care and strife?
Ah! we struggled hard to hold him,
'Gainst a just and legal claim;
We could sense the voice of angels,
Calling out his cherished name.
"He is worthy! He is worthy!"
We could almost hear them say;
"Let him enter! Let him enter!"
And his spirit passed away.
He has earned the high promotion.
The magnificent reward.
Of a place among the prophets.
Very near unto the Lord.
He will counsel there in wisdom,
Let his loved ones here rejoice,
That within that grand tribunal
They have now a leading voice.
Let the Saints he loved be faithful;
They will follow after while;
Let them merit his kind welcome.
And his loving, genial smile.
L. L. Greene Richards.
APOSTLE FRANKLIN DEWEY RICHARDS.
Called to great, important missions,
Even while a beardless youth;
F. D. Richards proved most loyal
To the holy cause of Truth.
Faithful, true, in every station,
Through a long, eventful life;
Shall we grudge him now the passport.
From this world of care and strife?
Ah! we struggled hard to hold him,
'Gainst a just and legal claim;
We could sense the voice of angels,
Calling out his cherished name.
"He is worthy! He is worthy!"
We could almost hear them say;
"Let him enter! Let him enter!"
And his spirit passed away.
He has earned the high promotion.
The magnificent reward.
Of a place among the prophets.
Very near unto the Lord.
He will counsel there in wisdom,
Let his loved ones here rejoice,
That within that grand tribunal
They have now a leading voice.
Let the Saints he loved be faithful;
They will follow after while;
Let them merit his kind welcome.
And his loving, genial smile.
L. L. Greene Richards.
“Death of President Franklin Dewey Richards.” Young Woman's Journal. February 1900. pg. 90-91.
Death of President Franklin Dewey Richards.
One of the noblest and purest souls that ever dwelt in mortality has finished his life career. President Franklin D. Richards was a loyal and essentially a broad-minded man. His death is a personal loss to every woman in Zion; for he was a devoted friend and supporter to the cause of woman. There was no jealousy in his mind towards progressive and “strong-minded” women. He knew his own strength, and therefore he knew the strength of womanliness and he had no fears. The smallness of some men who are over-timid lest their wives and daughters shall surpass them in power or privilege found no place in Brother Richards’ big soul. He had tested the sense and sobriety of women and he rested his faith in them on that knowledge. There was a time in the history of this magazine when Brother Richards brought grave and difficult counsel to the women who had charge of its fortunes. The advice was so gently given, the admonition so fatherly, and the promises of blessings from obedience so full and fruitful that it was a sad pleasure to listen and to obey. No one but those involved ever knew what he said; but the quiet compliance therewith has brough much of the success and prosperity which has since attended us. What a swelling joy fills the soul when laying the last tribute of love and respect on the memory of men like President Franklin D. Richards! Do the women of Zion realize the debt they owe to such leaders? To be in any way the recipient of friendship from the pure hands and noble great-heart of such an one is a priceless boon which even eternity can scarcely excel. God be thanked for the like and labors of our revered leader and friend, Franklin D. Richards!
Death of President Franklin Dewey Richards.
One of the noblest and purest souls that ever dwelt in mortality has finished his life career. President Franklin D. Richards was a loyal and essentially a broad-minded man. His death is a personal loss to every woman in Zion; for he was a devoted friend and supporter to the cause of woman. There was no jealousy in his mind towards progressive and “strong-minded” women. He knew his own strength, and therefore he knew the strength of womanliness and he had no fears. The smallness of some men who are over-timid lest their wives and daughters shall surpass them in power or privilege found no place in Brother Richards’ big soul. He had tested the sense and sobriety of women and he rested his faith in them on that knowledge. There was a time in the history of this magazine when Brother Richards brought grave and difficult counsel to the women who had charge of its fortunes. The advice was so gently given, the admonition so fatherly, and the promises of blessings from obedience so full and fruitful that it was a sad pleasure to listen and to obey. No one but those involved ever knew what he said; but the quiet compliance therewith has brough much of the success and prosperity which has since attended us. What a swelling joy fills the soul when laying the last tribute of love and respect on the memory of men like President Franklin D. Richards! Do the women of Zion realize the debt they owe to such leaders? To be in any way the recipient of friendship from the pure hands and noble great-heart of such an one is a priceless boon which even eternity can scarcely excel. God be thanked for the like and labors of our revered leader and friend, Franklin D. Richards!
Whitney, O. F. “Lives of Our Leaders—The Apostles. Franklin Dewey Richards.” Juvenile Instructor. 15 February 1900. pg. 97-104.
Lives of Our Leaders--The Apostles. Franklin Dewey Richards. “When to the common rest that crowns our days, Called in the noon of life the good man goes, Or full of years and ripe in wisdom lays His silver temples in their last repose; ... We think on what they were, with many fears Lest goodness die with them and leave the coming years.” THAT President Franklin D. Richards was a good man, is certain; and that when he died no inconsiderable amount of goodness, excellence and virtue passed from this life into the higher life—evaporating like the gentle rain to the sky from which it fell—is equally undeniable to all who knew him, and whose faith in God and the hereafter in any degree ran parallel with his own. How often would he refer to the eternal immigration and emigration of the spirits of men, the sons and daughters of God, sent hither or summoned hence by their Maker, pursuant to the divine laws governing human development and progression ; a spectacle, he maintained, that would be as visible to our eyes, if the veil of earthliness were lifted, as any other sight that our mortal visions now behold. He did not believe, however, that with him, or with any man who might die, all goodness was in danger of departing out of the world. He held that it was the mission of good men everywhere to bring goodness into the world and leave it here, where it might accumulate, where, by virtue of the righteous examples and precepts of such men, it would take root, grow, increase and multiply, until eventually the whole earth would be redeemed by it. Franklin D. Richards was a good man. Was he also a great man? Let us see. Men may be good without being great, but no man can be truly great without being truly good. “Sire, you are looking at a good man, and I at a great man; each of us can profit by it,” Victor Hugo makes his Bishop Myriel say to the Emperor Napoleon. But Napoleon could not have been great had there been no goodness in him, and that the good Bishop was also great, is evident from this good and great utterance alone. There are degrees of goodness and of greatness, as abstract philosophy and concrete history both testify; but if history, which “teaches philosophy by examples,” tells anything, and if philosophy can add anything to what history has told, it declares and must declare that in the last analysis goodness is the jeweled crown that greatness wears upon its brow. Of necessity they are inseparable. Goodness is the life-blood by which greatness is sustained and perpetuated. Disaster follows inevitably their divorce. What is greatness? It is largeness; in other words, goodness expanded and developed. What is goodness? Greatness in embryo, potential excellence, awaiting expansion and development. Greatness is largeness, consequently there are different kinds of greatness. Greatness of body is not greatness of mind, nor is greatness of mind necessarily greatness of heart and soul. Greatness of mind, heart and soul depends upon capacity, upon the possession of noble talents, of sublime qualities, and the disposition and power to put them to their proper use. Tried by this test, Franklin D. Richards comes forth from the crucible not only a good man, but a great one. A man may still be great, though his fellowmen in general do not recognize in him the elements of greatness. Many a great man has been ignored by his contemporaries, and appreciated, if at all, only by posterity. It is the lot of comparatively few even among great souls to shine conspicuously in the eyes of their own generation. Franklin D. Richards was one of that few. Born among humble surroundings and reared in comparative obscurity, he was destined to be singled out for prominence and placed on high to subserve the ends of Deity. Men not great in the eyes of God do not rise to such positions as this man was fated to fill. A great and good man will be true to his convictions, however unpopular, and will faithfully carry them out when duty demands, whatever the cost or sacrifice. The life and character of Franklin D. Richards furnish a shining example of this fact. He was a youth of seventeen, when in his far away New England home (Richmond, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where he was born April 2nd, 1821) he espoused the unpopular cause of “Mormonism," being baptized by his father, Phinehas Richards, in the waters of Mill Creek in his native town, June 3rd, 1838. The conversion of the Richards family to “Mormonism” had been brought about through the agency of their cousin, Brigham Young, then one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which in 1836 had its headquarters at Kirtland, Ohio. During the summer of that year Brigham Young and his brother Joseph came to Richmond on a proselyting visit, bringing with them the Book of Mormon, which was carefully perused by their kindred, and by none more carefully than the youth Franklin, one of the most studious and thoughtful minds among them. Its perusal, in the intervals of his labors upon the farm, converted him, as it had previously converted his uncles Willard and Levi Richards, his father Phinehas, his mother Wealthy Dewey Richards, and other members of the family. His younger brother George, with his uncles, was already with the main body of the Church, which at the time of Franklin's baptism was migrating from Ohio to Missouri. In the fall of 1838 he bade farewell to home and kindred, such as yet remained in Massachusetts, and set out for Far West, Missouri, then the chief gathering place of the Saints. The local war between “Mormons" and Missourians was then raging, and the awful news of the Haun's Mill massacre, the siege and sacking of Far West and other atrocities by the Missourians reached the ears of the young convert toilsomely trudging his hopeful way towards the scene of the prevailing troubles. As he passed through the trampled fields and smoldering ruins of once flourishing but now deserted "Mormon^ homesteads, and at Haun's Mill stood upon the spot where nearly a score of defenseless settlers had been inhumanly butchered by an armed mob and their bodies thrown into a well, he little dreamed that in that rude receptacle, covered up with rocks and soil, lay all that was mortal of his beloved brother, George Spencer Richards, one of the victims of the massacre. In May, 1839, Franklin joined his expatriated people at Quincy, Illinois, where he first met the Prophet Joseph Smith. At Nauvoo, in April, 1840, he was ordained a Seventy and sent upon a mission to Northern Indiana, where he labored zealously and successfully, converting and baptizing many. At the town of La Porte he formed the acquaintance of Isaac Snyder and family, natives of the Eastern States, who had been converted to “Mormonism” in Canada and had come part way on their journey to the gathering place at Nauvoo. In their hospitable home the young missionary was tenderly nursed back to health from a severe spell of sickness resulting from his arduous labors and the somewhat unhealthy climate of that section. Though active and quick to recuperate, he was never robust; his constitution, lithe and elastic, resembling the willow rather than the oak, easily bent but not readily broken. The youngest daughter of this family, Jane Snyder, he married at Nauvoo, December 18th, 1842. This young wife was about to become a mother, when, in the midst of the exodus of the Saints from Illinois, her husband set out upon his first mission to foreign lands. Ordained a High Priest in 1844, he had previously been called to preach the Gospel in Europe, and had started and gone as far as the Atlantic seaboard (discharging en route a semi-political duty in the interests of the Prophet, who was a candidate for the Presidency of the United States) when he was recalled to Nauvoo by the terrible tidings of the murder of the Prophet and Patriarch in Carthage jail. A special mission to the State of Michigan intervened, during which Elder Richards gathered means for the completion of the Nauvoo Temple— to which he contributed the labor of his own hands as carpenter and painter— and then came the second call to Europe. Leaving Nauvoo early in July, he sailed from New York in the latter part of September. God is never cruel, but His providences, designed for man's development, sometimes seem so. While Franklin D. Richards, homeless and almost penniless, was making his way eastward to the port where he would embark for a foreign strand, his invalid wife, whom he had left at the camp of the exiled Saints on Sugar Creek, westward bound, gave birth to a son, her second child, and the babe, after drawing a few faint breaths, pillowed its head in eternal sleep upon its broken-hearted mother's breast. The sad news reached the young husband and father just as he was on the eve of sailing. During his absence his only remaining child, a lovely little daughter named Wealthy, also died, as did his brother Joseph W.; the former at Winter Quarters on the Missouri River; the latter, at Pueblo, now in Colorado, on his way to California, as a member of the Mormon Battalion. Landing at Liverpool about the middle of October, Elder Richards was appointed to preside over the Church in Scotland, and in January, 1847, he filled a brief interregnum as President of the European Mission, between the departure of President Orson Hyde and the arrival of his successor President Orson Spencer. He was chosen by the latter to act as his counselor, and subsequently labored in the Bath, Bristol and Trowbridge Conferences, which he reorganized as the South Conference. At the head of a company of Saints bound for Utah, and accompanied by his brother Samuel, who had been his co-laborer in Scotland, he sailed from Liverpool February 20, 1848, and by way of New Orleans and St. Louis reached Winter Quarters, where his wife awaited him. He was in time to cross the plains with Presidents Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards, the newly created First Presidency, who led the main body of the migrating Church to Salt Lake Valley that season. Franklin was captain over fifty wagons in the sub-division commanded by President Richards. He reached his journey's end on the 19th of October. Ordained an Apostle on the 12th of February, 1849, Franklin D. Richards in the following October started upon his second mission to Europe, this time to relieve President Orson Pratt, in charge of affairs at Liverpool. He now established in that land the Perpetual Emigrating Fund, which prior to leaving home he had helped to institute, and in 1852 forwarded to Utah the first company of European Saints that ever emigrated under its auspices. The mighty work accomplished by him during this and his two subsequent missions to Europe, can only be briefly summarized in this article. Under him and his brother Samuel (who presided during the first interregnum) “Mormonism” in the British Isles rose to the zenith of its prosperity. It had previously numbered forty thousand converts in that country. Now, between the summers of 1850 and 1852, sixteen thousand additional baptisms were recorded; a more perfect organization of branches, conferences and pastorates was effected throughout the Mission; new editions of the Hymn Book and Voice of Warning were issued; the Pearl of Great Price was compiled; the Book of Mormon stereotyped, and the business of the Liverpool office doubled. Two important plans were also devised, one to make the Millennial Star a weekly instead of a semi-monthly periodical, with an increase in the number of its issue, and the other to change the route of “Mormon” emigration from Liverpool, making it go by way of New York, instead of by the old, perilous and sickly route via New Orleans and St. Louis. Apostle Richards returned to Utah in the summer of 1852, in time to attend the special conference held at Salt Lake City on the 28th and 29th of August, at which the doctrine of plural marriage, (which he had long since accepted and obeyed,) was first publicly promulgated. The two following winters were spent by him in the Legislature. He participated in the ceremonies of dedicating the Salt Lake Temple grounds and laying the corner-stones of that edifice early in 1853, and in the ensuing summer and fall made two trips to Iron County to establish the iron works projected by President Brigham Young, and some of the arrangements for which had been made by himself and Apostle Erastus Snow while in Europe. During the winter of 1853-4, he was requested by President Young to prepare to resume his missionary labors abroad. His letter of appointment from the First Presidency now authorized him “to preside over all the conferences and all the affairs of the Church in the British Islands and adjacent countries." This meant that he was expected to direct the affairs of the Church in the East Indies, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe. Prior to his departure for England, his uncle, President Willard Richards, died, and from that time the Apostle Franklin was looked upon as the head of the Richards family. He arrived at Liverpool June 4th, 1854 and as soon as practicable made an extended tour of the various continental branches, everywhere stimulating and promoting the work. During a subsequent trip to the continent he organized the Saxon Mission and baptized Dr. Karl G. Maeser, one of the most notable converts that the European Mission has produced. In 1855 he leased for the Church the premises known as “42 Islington, Liverpool,” which have ever since remained the chief office and headquarters of the Mission. Between 1854 and 1856 eight thousand emigrants were shipped under his direction from Liverpool to New York. President Richards acted the part of a father to his missionary subordinates and they loved him for his great kindness of heart, his sunny, even-tempered affability, gentlemanly courtesy and sincere desires for their welfare and that of the great cause which all were actively engaged in promoting. Everywhere the work throve amazingly under his administration, although during much of the time he labored under great bodily weakness and debility. Apostle Orson Pratt, who in July, 1856, succeeded him as President of the Mission, in announcing that fact through the Millennial Star, said with reference to his predecessor: “A rapid extension of the work of the gathering has been a prominent feature of his administration, the last great act of which—the introduction of practicing the law of tithing among the Saints in Europe—is a fitting close to his extensive and important labors. We receive the work from the hands of President Richards with great satisfaction and pleasure on account of the healthy and flourishing condition in which we find it.” President Richards left Liverpool on the 26th of July, and arrived at Salt Lake City on the 4th of October. He assisted in the great reformation then in progress throughout the Church, and during the winter of 1856-7 was again in the Legislature, and was re-elected a Regent of the University of Deseret. In April, 18-57, he was elected and commissioned a brigadier-general in the Utah militia and partook of the general experiences attending the invasion of the Territory by Johnston's army. For several years thereafter he was active in ecclesiastical, political, military and educational work for the public, and in his spare time engaged in agricultural and milling pursuits on his own account. In July, 1866, he was again appointed upon a mission to Europe. Pursuant to this appointment, he landed at Liverpool in September of that year, and first made an extended tour through the branches and conferences of Great Britain, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, making himself thoroughly acquainted with the affairs of the Mission, to the presidency of which he succeeded in July of the year following. The retiring President, Elder Brigham Young, Jr., in announcing the installation of his successor, referred to him as "a tried warrior in the cause of truth,” and predicted that a fresh impetus would be given the work under his administration. The words were scarcely uttered before they began to be fulfilled. Rallying the Elders to his support and reinforcing their native zeal with his own infectious enthusiasm, he sent them forth into the ministry with renewed faith and determination. The result was the baptism within the next twelve months of three thousand four hundred and fifty-seven souls in Great Britain alone. In the same length of time he emigrated to Utah upwards of two thousand three hundred Latter-day Saints. He also inaugurated the change by which steamships were substituted for sailing vessels in the Church emigration. On his arrival home, October 3rd, 1868, he received from President Young this warm and appreciative greeting: "Brother Franklin, welcome home; I am glad to see you; I congratulate you on your revival of the work in the British Mission.” The period of his return from this his last foreign mission was the period of the advent into Utah of the trans-continental railroad, which, after the welding ceremony at Promontory in May, 1869, made Ogden, Weber County, the joint terminus of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific roads, under the Soubriquet of the "Junction City.” There, by President Young's advice and appointment. Apostle Richards took up his permanent abode, and acted for several years as President of the Weber Stake of Zion. He was at Ogden to welcome the advent of the “iron horse" two months before the meeting of the two railroads at Promontory. In February of that year he was elected probate judge of Weber County and held that office continuously from March 1st, 1869, to September 25th, 1883. During his tenure of the position the county was greatly built up and improved. In January, 1870, he with others started the newspaper known as the Ogden Junction, of which he was for some time the editor. Judge Richards' court had both original and appellate jurisdiction in common law and chancery cases until the Poland law, in 1874, limited the jurisdiction of the probate courts in Utah. Many important cases, civil and criminal, were tried before him, and his decisions, when appealed from, invariably stood unreversed by the higher tribunals. His strong tenacity of purpose, combined with his characteristic devotion to duty and that shrewd sagacity which quickly recognized and as promptly made available for ends sought the means by which they were to be attained, was conspicuously shown at the time of the enactment by Congress of the Hoar amendment to the Edmunds law, under which an effort was made to summarily oust, not only all polygamists, but all “Mormons," from office; the places vacated to be filled by appointees of the governor of Utah, whose advisers were the chiefs of the Liberal or anti-Mormon party. After some preliminary sparring in the courts at Salt Lake City, there was a general lull in the agitation, the contest centering round and the issue resting upon the action in Weber County, where J. N. Kimball, Governor Murray's appointee as probate judge, demanded on the 2nd of October, 1882, that office from the Incumbent, Franklin D. Richards. The demand was not complied with, a writ of mandamus was sued out, and the case went into the courts. Judge Richards planted himself squarely upon the proposition — which was irrefutable—that the Hoar amendment was not designed to create vacancies, but merely to fill vacancies that might have been caused by the failure of the last regular election, a failure due to the non-arrival of the Utah Commission, whose duty it was to superintend that election. He also maintained that there was no vacancy in his office, since under the hold-over provision of the statute governing his election, his term of office continued, not until some one was appointed to succeed him, but “until his successor was elected and qualified." Judge Richards in this contest stood as the champion of hundreds of officials throughout Utah. The Federal courts of the Territory sustained the Governor's position, and an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, but before the case could be reached upon the calendar, the term of- the Governor's appointee had expired and the contest ended without the action of the court of last resort. The time and talents of Apostle Richards, after his retirement from the judicial bench, were devoted almost exclusively to the discharge of the duties of his sacred calling. In April, 1884, he was made the assistant to the Church Historian, Apostle Wilford Woodruff, and five years later, when the latter succeeded to the Presidency of the Church, he succeeded him as Historian and General Church Recorder. During the greater part of the anti-polygamy crusade—1884 to 1890 —he was one of the very few among the “Mormon” leaders who were not compelled to go into retirement, and during most of that period he presided at the General Conferences of the Church and gave advice and direction to the Saints as the visible representative of the absent Presidency. We cannot speak of his wealth and vested interests. He had none. His life was not devoted to the accumulation of property. His wealth was of the mind, heart and soul, and in all that these represent he was rich. President Snow's accession to the chief place of power and authority in the Church made Apostle Richards the senior in the Council of the Twelve, and on September 13th, 1898, he was sustained by that Council as its President. Thenceforward he continued in the active discharge of his various duties, laboring so continuously (especially after the inauguration of President Snow's great tithing reform movement), that it was feared by his family and friends that he would injure his health and break down under the burden he was carrying. He was affectionately warned by them and advised to rest from his labors, but his silent reply to their solicitude, written in his private journal, was to the effect that he had never learned to shirk his duty and must continue along that line to the end. The end came—the beginning of it in August, 1899, when his health failed and he was compelled to take the rest he had hitherto denied himself. A trip to California succeeded, transiently helpful, but not permanently so, and a few months after his return, at fourteen minutes past midnight on the 9th of December, his freed spirit passed to its eternal rest. Emerson in one of his most beautiful sentences says: "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of his character.” This golden utterance is eminently descriptive of the subject of this eulogy. No man better exemplified that independence of character so justly lauded by the American poet-philosopher than President Franklin D. Richards. In all his wide and extended intercourse with men of all classes and conditions, through a missionary experience of thirty years on both hemispheres, and in all his subsequent career as a civil and ecclesiastical officer, constantly in touch with persons of all varieties and grades of opinion, he never swerved from the straight line of conviction marked out for himself, or rather marked out for him by the Almighty, when he enlisted in His service. Politic and prudent he might be, but never false to principle. His virtue was not of the cloistered kind. He mingled with men and came in contact with the world, but he maintained his independence, his faith in God, and his integrity was untarnished and unshaken. His faith—as remarked by one speaker at his funeral—was "strong enough to stand alone.” He had confidence in the principles he professed; he believed they could pass through the fires of hell unscathed, could survive “the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds.” At the same time he was for carefully guarding the young and inexperienced against the wiles and ways of evil. He read much, read everything good, in science, in history, in religion. He was a thorough convert to that divine teaching by the Prophet Joseph Smith: "Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning by study and also by faith.” He held with the Prophet that “the glory of God is intelligence,” and he was not afraid to bask in its light and warm himself in its rays; knowing as he did that those rays of intelligence, though reflected from many prisms, could have but one real Source. Huxley, Darwin, Spencer, Tyndall, and other scientists and philosophers, whose choicest works adorned his library and were read by him with profound respect for the learning of their authors, only confirmed him in his faith as a follower of Jesus Christ and a convert and disciple of Joseph Smith. He contended for the necessary harmony of true religion with true science, and only cast away what he considered dross in both. He was liberal in his ideas and in his actions. He would persuade men to do right, but never, never coerce them. Charitable to all and speaking evil of none, if men misjudged him, he, bore it patiently, knowing that time and justice would vindicate him, and being content to leave it to their arbitration. During his last illness, even when sickest, he never complained, and when asked concerning his condition, would invariably answer, "comfortable, comfortable;” though the loved ones about him knew that it was to allay their anxiety that he thus replied, and that the comfort he referred to was more of the mind and heart than of the body. “Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.” Perhaps no man in this community ever exemplified to a greater degree these sublime qualities than the man whose honored name stands as the caption of this article. If there were nothing else in the character and career of Franklin D. Richards to entitle him to the distinction of greatness and nobility among his fellows, these grand qualities would suffice, for he was pre-eminently a patient man, a meek man, one who endured much and was faithful to his principles and convictions; but he was also one who achieved much, and will long be remembered for the noble works he performed, not only within the State as a prominent ecclesiast and civic officer, but in lands far distant from this, where he wrought with mighty zeal and marvelous success in the interests of the sacred cause to which he had consecrated his life. As an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; a member of the Utah Legislature many times re-elected; Regent of the University of Deseret; Brigadier-General in the Nauvoo Legion; Probate Judge of Weber County; Church Historian; President of the State Genealogical and Historical societies, and finally President of the Twelve Apostles, he labored in every capacity with intelligence, wisdom and zeal, and carved out a name and fame that will be as lasting as the archives and records of the Church and Commonwealth which he so faithfully served. |
President Franklin D. Richards
|
“From a Sermon by Franklin D. Richards.” Young Woman's Journal. January 1917. pg. 56.
From a Sermon by Apostle Franklin D. Richards.
“The law of tithing is an obligation laid upon all the people of God. It has been so in every age, and we have no account of the prosperity and progress of God’s people without Tithing being a standing law in their midst, which they continually observed. That is not all, my brethren. The Church of the Lord had this among them before ever the Gentiles knew what it was to assess and collect taxes, and it is from this that they learned to do so. The law of Tithing was in the household of faith, the Church of God on the earth, before the old Babylonish nations were founded, and they as well as the sectarians have learned pretty much all they knew from the people of God at one time or another. Tithing is an institution which has prevailed from the beginning, and it looks to me as though it was the consideration required by the Lord—the Creator of the earth, from men who dwell upon it, as a material something by which they may acknowledge to him in deed and in truth, that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and by means of which they can restore to him, in the order of his appointment that which is his.”’
From the foregoing the Latter-day Saint girl may see that the payment of tithes is a requirement of the Church; and that great temporal, as well as spiritual blessings, are promised by the Lord to all those who observe this law. The valleys in the mountains, wherein most of our people live have been redeemed largely by the observance of this requirement.
“And I say unto you, if my people observe not this law, to keep it holy, and by this law sanctify the land of Zion unto me, that my statutes and mv judgments may be kept thereon, that it may be most holy, behold, verily I say unto you, it shall not be a land of Zion unto you; and this shall be an ensample unto all the stakes of Zion.”[1]
Many Latter-day Saints believe that they owe their prosperity to the strict living of this law.
[1] Journal of Discourses, page 61.
From a Sermon by Apostle Franklin D. Richards.
“The law of tithing is an obligation laid upon all the people of God. It has been so in every age, and we have no account of the prosperity and progress of God’s people without Tithing being a standing law in their midst, which they continually observed. That is not all, my brethren. The Church of the Lord had this among them before ever the Gentiles knew what it was to assess and collect taxes, and it is from this that they learned to do so. The law of Tithing was in the household of faith, the Church of God on the earth, before the old Babylonish nations were founded, and they as well as the sectarians have learned pretty much all they knew from the people of God at one time or another. Tithing is an institution which has prevailed from the beginning, and it looks to me as though it was the consideration required by the Lord—the Creator of the earth, from men who dwell upon it, as a material something by which they may acknowledge to him in deed and in truth, that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and by means of which they can restore to him, in the order of his appointment that which is his.”’
From the foregoing the Latter-day Saint girl may see that the payment of tithes is a requirement of the Church; and that great temporal, as well as spiritual blessings, are promised by the Lord to all those who observe this law. The valleys in the mountains, wherein most of our people live have been redeemed largely by the observance of this requirement.
“And I say unto you, if my people observe not this law, to keep it holy, and by this law sanctify the land of Zion unto me, that my statutes and mv judgments may be kept thereon, that it may be most holy, behold, verily I say unto you, it shall not be a land of Zion unto you; and this shall be an ensample unto all the stakes of Zion.”[1]
Many Latter-day Saints believe that they owe their prosperity to the strict living of this law.
[1] Journal of Discourses, page 61.