John Kenny Richards ~ Index
John Kenny Richards was born 16 May 1806, in the city of Quebec, Lower Canada to John Wilson Richards and Marie Angelique Kenny. His early years were spent with the family farming in Canada. In the year 1831 John married Agness Hill in the Township of Lanark, Quebec, Canada. Her parents were Alexander Hill and Elizabeth Currie. In April 1840 the Hill family and their son-in-law, John Kenny Richards, joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada. John was the clerk of the Essex Branch during the years 1840-1841. Some of his records are on display.
Considerable time was spent in negotiating sales and selling their homes and farms, in preparation of a move to the United States to gather with the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois. The winter of 1841–1842 was very severe and little happened as this group prepared to leave Canada. Spring arrived and then summer, but not until they had made great sacrifices of price in value did they succeed in disposing of their real property. Near the beginning of the month of September the group bade farewell to their British possessions, crossedthe boundary line, with horse teams and covered wagons and entered the United States. Without serious accident and with all of their earthly belongings,they arrived at the village of Nauvoo on the 30th day of September, 1842.
In Nauvoo, John hauled bricks for the Nauvoo House, stones for the Nauvoo Temple, timber and fire wood from the islands of the Mississippi River and aided in building the village into a beautiful city. In those days no harvesting machines were in existence, reapers and binders were unheard of and threshers consisted of the old harvest cradle and hand binding.
There is one incident told where John Kenny Richards, with seven other men, drove out of Nauvoo to Camp Creek for the purpose of harvesting grain. They had not been there long when they were surrounded by about 80 men who were armed with rifles, pistols, bayonets and swords. They took John to the woods nearby where he was made to kneel in a ditch, compelled to bare his bacfk and recline his stomach over a rail on the bank of the ditch. While in this posture he received twenty lashes. As he emerged from the ditch a derisive smile escaped his lips. Immediately a dispute arose between the executioners as to whether he should be administered a second dose. Their final verdict was that he had enough.
From this time the mob began to gather and enter Nauvoo. A council was held and the Saints concluded to abandon the city. These people were forced to flee from their comfortable homes, leaving them to be inhabited by mobcrats. Near Montrose, Iowa, sheltered only by the broad canopy of heaven and while crouched under the noonday sun, Agnes Hill Richards gave birth to a baby girl, whom they named Rachel.
John and his family made their way to Winter Quarters where they stayed for sometime, planting grain and preparing for the coming Saints. Here, on 22 March 1949, a son, Hyrum Thomas Richards, was born at Honey Creek (Kanesville) Iowa. The Richards family arrived in Great Salt Lake City, 9 September 1851 with the Luman A. Shurtliff Company. They went to Mill Creek to live and engaged in farming.
On 23 December 1859, John Kenny Richards and his wife started for Cache Valley and arrived at Mendon Fort on the evening of the 25th. John H. Richards, aged twenty years and his brother, Hyrum T., aged ten years, went to this place in the spring of 1859 to locate a farm and make preparations for the family'sfuture home. These two boys, who arrived about the middle of July, have the unique distinction of having built and finished the first house in the "Old Fort" where Mendon now stands.
John Kenny Richards spent the rest of his life in Mendon. His health had been greatly impaired by the severe beating he had received at the hands of the mob in Nauvoo and by the arduous journey to Utah. He was bedridden for six years and was nursed by his son, Hyrum Thomas and his wife until his death 15 November 1889. His wife preceded him in death, 30 March 1886.