JAMES BAILEY RICHARDSON 1832-1911

James Bailey Richardson died in Orford, New Hampshire, August 30, 1911. He was the son of Joel and Sarah Bailey Richardson. He was born in Or ford, December 9, 1832.

His boyhood and youth were spent on his father's farm, which bordered upon the Connecticut River. He always felt that he there acquired by experience and observation a knowledge of many things which were the source of much pleasure and satisfaction to him during his entire life.

He attended the district school and the academy in Orford, and in 1853 entered Yale College; but he left Yale at the end of his freshman year and entered Dartmouth, from which he was graduated in 1857. He studied law in Concord for one year, when he came to Boston, and for a time was connected with the well known law firm of Hutchins and Wheeler.

He was admitted to the Suffolk Bar in 1859. He immediately began the practice of law in Boston, which was continued without interruption until his appointment to the Bench of the Superior Court of Massachusetts in May, 1892. Prior to this appointment he had a very large experience as a Master in Chancery, and also as Auditor, Referee, and Master under appointments by the courts. At the Bar, and upon the Bench, he was considered especially strong as an equity lawyer, and a volume of Notes on Equity Pleading and Practice in Massachusetts, published in 1904, was very favorably received by the profession.

He was a representative from the city of Boston to the General Court in 1866, and was also a member of the City Council of Boston in the years 1877 and 1878. He was a member of the commission in 1884 which revised the city charter of Boston. He was Corporation Counsel of the city of Boston from 1889 to 1891. He was a member of the Rapid Transit Commission of the city of Boston in 1892. He was appointed a justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts in 1892, which position he held until his death. He was a trustee of the Franklin Savings Bank in Boston for more than thirty years. He was for many years a member of the Boston Art Club, and was also one of the original members of the University Club of Boston, of which he was for many years vice-president. He was deeply interested in the New England Home for Little Wanderers, to which he gave much of his time, having been a member of the board of managers for more than thirty years.

From the time of his graduation until his death he had a deep interest in his college class, and in every member of it. He was for forty years one of its executive committee, and for the greater part of that time was president of the class.

He was always intensely loyal to the College, and he gave to it many years of valuable service. It was largely through his efforts that the plan was devised and adopted by which the alumni of the College are enabled to take an active part in the election of trustees of the College. In recognition of this service he was in 1891 chosen by the alumni the first trustee under the new system, and continued a member of the board for a period of twelve years. In 1896 the College conferred upon him the degree of LL.D.

In further recognition of the services he had rendered to the College, in June 1897 President Tucker, expressing the unanimous desire of the Board of Trustees of the College, requested Judge Richardson to allow his name to be placed upon the dormitory just then completed, and which has since been known as Richardson Hall. In making this request, President Tucker wrote, "No man among our alumni cherishes the College with a deeper or tenderer sentiment than yourself. Your loyalty is of that finer sort which is as rare as it is beautiful. And you represent more distinctly than any one on the board the inauguration of the movement for alumni representation."

Judge Richardson had an influential part in securing the services of Doctor Tucker as President of the College. From the first he felt that the original unanimous choice of Doctor Tucker by the trustees in March of 1892 was the wisest that could possibly be made. Doctor Tucker at that time felt it to be his duty to decline the appointment; but in January, 1893, a sub-committee of three of which Judge Richardson was a member, and the spokesman, strongly urged Doctor Tucker to reconsider his decision, and to accept the appointment.

For the services rendered by Judge Richardson in inaugurating alumni representation on the Board of Trustees, and in securing the appointment of Doctor Tucker as President of the College, his name should be held in grateful remembrance by the entire body of the alumni.

In 1865 he married Lucy Cushing Gould, daughter of Augustus A. and Harriet Sheafe Gould of Boston, who survives him.

It would not be fitting to omit even from this brief sketch some mention of the qualities which made Judge Richardson a marked man. Perhaps the keynote of his entire life was an unswerving devotion to duty as he saw it. This characteristic was stamped upon his entire professional career; and it was so obvious in him that all with whom he came in contact felt him worthy of their absolute trust and confidence. This quality perhaps goes far to explain his great capacity for making and retaining friends. Many a chance acquaintance, or a casual client, became his warm personal friend, and those who mourn him may be found in every walk of life. -He was remarkable always for his industry. It was his principle, as he himself has expressed it, that "hard work in a congenial pursuit is a man's best hope of salvation." He detested fraud or hypocrisy, and was an uncompromising enemy to violence or terrorism in any form. Some of his strongest judicial opinions have been directed against the abuses of power, both by capital and labor, and many of these have been widely quoted and commended. In his death the State has lost an able, fearless and conscientious servant, and the College one of her most loyal and distinguished sons.