Franklin D. Richards House

The Richards House was constructed in the early 1860 T s by Franklin D. Richards for his plural wife Rhoda H. Foss Richards. Franklin D. Richards married Rhoda after the death of Willard Richards, her first husband and Franklin D. Richard’s uncle.

Located at 386 North 100 East in Farmington, Utah and added to the National Historic Register (#77001303) on December 23, 1977.

Rhoda Foss Richards was born April 19, 1830, in Maine. She was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1844 and in 1850 came to Utah with her mother, brother and sisters. The next year, November 30, 1851. she married Willard Richards, second counselor to President Brigham Young. One son, Calvin W. Richards, was born to Rhoda before Willard Richards died six weeks before his 50th birthday on March 11, 1854. One of several plural wives left by Willard Richards, Rhoda and other wives lived in Salt Lake City while several other wives lived in Farmington.

With no one directly responsible for the welfare of the Willard Richards family and the family facing acute financial problems, several wives wrote to Brigham Young seeking his advice. Following Young’s counsel, four of the wives, including Rhoda, married Franklin D. Richards on March 7, 1857. The marriage might have taken place earlier but Franklin D. Richards left for a proselyting mission to England two weeks after Willard’s death in March 1854 and did not return to Utah until October 1856.

Following the unsettled period caused by President James Buchanan’s sending a Federal Army to put down an alleged rebellion among the Mormons, Franklin D. Richards moved Rhoda to Farmington in 1858 where she occupied a log cabin until the three-room rock house was completed some time after the birth of twin boys, Ira and Exra, on July 27, 1860. Earlier another son, Hyrum, was born to Franklin and Rhoda on December 14, 1857. Later a daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, was born on October 31, 1862.

Rhoda lived in the Farmington home until her death in 1881. Although the official residence of Franklin D. Richards was Ogden, his journal notes frequent visits to Farmington to care for Rhoda and three other wives who lived in the community. An attractive lady of twenty-seven at the time of her marriage to Franklin, Rhoda seems to have been an understanding wife for whom Franklin had a great concern. A few days before her death, Franklin, upon her advice, reluctantly left to accompany other church authorities on a visit to the Southern part of Utah. In a biographical sketch of Rhoda Foss Richards, Mathias F. Cowley writes, “She was kind and lovable, yet firm for the right in everything whether of small or great importance. She and her family were very poor in this world’s goods, but rich in faith and the hopes of a glorious future. She was well educated but yet willing not only to be a school teacher but to milk a cow, feed chickens and attend to every essential work whether in the house or out of doors. She raised her family in the main with little help from her husband for his duties as a faithful apostle of the Lord called him away from home most of the time, and having a large family they had to struggle but it made them self reliant. . ..”

Franklin D. Richards was one of the most important intellectual leaders of the LDS church and Utah during the Nineteenth Century. Born April 2, 1821, in Richmond, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, he joined the Mormon Church in June 1838 and moved West first to Missouri and then Illinois. During the period from 1840 to 1845 he served several proselyting missions in the United States and in July 1846 he left for a two-year mission to England.

Arriving in Salt Lake City in October 1848 he was called as one of the Church’s twelve Apostles on February 12, 1849. In October 1849 he returned to England as President of the British Mission from January 1, 1851, until he left England for Utah in May 1852. Under his administration the Prepetual Emigration Fund, a system whereby emigrants could borrow from a fund to pay for their travel to Utah then return the money to the fund for the use of others, was established in England. A successful administrator and missionary, Franklin D. Richards served as President of the entire European Mission, which included the British, French, Scandinavian, Swiss, German, and Italian mission fields, from 1854 to 1856 and 1866 to 1868.

Following his return from the last mission he was asked to move to Ogden to be the presiding ecclesiastical authority in Weber County. In this capacity he represented Brigham Young at the ceremonies marking the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869.

During the polygamy crusade of the 1880 ! s he was described as the “visible head of the church.” While Church President John Taylor was forced into hiding because of the polygamy issue, Franklin D. Richards and his wives, “. . . conformed their mode of life to the requirements of the law.” Without harassment by Federal authorities, Franklin Richards, while in communication with his colleagues who were in hiding, was able to act in an official capacity for the church including presiding over the church general conferences from October 1884 to October 1887.

In 1884 Franklin D. Richards was assigned to assist the Church Historian, Wilford Woodruff, and in 1889, when Wilford Woodruff became President of the church, Franklin D. Richards was appointed Church Historian. As a:_ historian, Richards was devoted to objectivity and authenticity. “His administration was marked by an intense desire to secure the strictest accuracy possible, and to have all history subject to the most careful scrutiny that may be available.”

He assisted Hubert Howe Bancroft in his preparation of his History of Utah which was completed in 1885 but not published until 1889. He participated in the founding of the Utah Genealogical Society in November 1894 and served as its first president. Recognizing that Utah’s History extended beyond the bounds of “Mormon History,” he also participated in the founding of the Utah Historical Society in 1897 and served as its president until his death on December 9, 1899. His Presidential address of 1898, given less than three weeks after his appointment as president, sought to define areas of possible research into Utah’s varied past. He noted the areas of agriculture, irrigation, manufacturing, mining, architecture, transportation, communication, colonization, education, Mormon and non-Mormon religious institutions, literature, fine arts, invention, social customs, manners and morals, politics, and woman’s suffrage. Regarding architecture he noted, “The evolution of architecture, as exhibited in the advancement from primitive log cabin to the stately mansion, and from the plain adobe structure with its small openings and little sashes, to the imposing edifices, public and private, erected and beautified with sandstone, granite, marble, onyx and other costly materials, obtained within our borders, must not be forgotten.”

He concluded the address with an optimistic outlook for the newborn organization’s future, “I regard the organization of this society as the foundation for a superstructure which will be continuously added upon, as the years pass by, until an edifice will appear which will command the admiration of successive generations, which will be invaluable to our mountain State, which will rank among the foremost institutions of the kind in our beloved country, and which will aid materially in the education of our people and advance the welfare of mankind.”

Following the death of Rhoda Foss Richards in 1881 the house remained in her family’s possession, and in 1890 Ezra Richards brought his new bride, Amanda Reeder, to the Farmington home. A farmer by occupation, Ezra also served a mission to New Zealand from 1885 to 1888 where he directed the translation of the Book of Mormon into the Maori language. Later from 1896 to 1898 he served as President of the New Zealand Mission. He added a fourth room to the three-room house in 1904.

Ezra Richards died February 1, 1930. However, his wife Amanda lived in the house until her death on March 4,1962. The house is currently owned by Clara Richards, a daughter of Ezra and Amanda Richards and granddaughters of Franklin D. Richards.

The Richards house is significant as one of the early rock houses constructed in Farmington. Since the Franklin D. Richards residence in Ogden has been destroyed, the Farmington House is perhaps the best tangible reminder of the life of this early church leader and historian. The relationship which developed between Rhoda Richards and her first husband’s nephew is an example of the workings of polygamy among Nineteenth Century Mormons.

The original portion of the Franklin D. Richards House is a one-story, three room stone structure with a T-shaped plan. The stone used in the building is a hard, igneous stone gathered from nearby fields and riverbeds. The walls of multicolored stone are laid up in random rubble fashion. Basically vernacular in character, the Richards’ House is trimmed with a plain cornice and frieze and flat lintels and sills, all of plain, unmoulded wood. The window and door bays are square. The windows are 6/6 double-hung sash with simple beveled muntins.

The front porch, a hipped roof canopy which extends across the full length of the western side of the trunk of the T appears on early photographs with round wooden columns and brackets. It is likely that this porch, along with a one-story, frame, hipped wing along the eastern and southern sides of the trunk of the T, were added after 1890. The posts and brackets remain on the later porch, but the frame siding has been covered with newer sheathing. Fortunately, these exterior alterations are on the backside of the house and are not visible from the front view.

Inside, the original rooms retain their original dimensions, trim and spacial arrangements. One fireplace of c. 1890 vintage is also extant. The house has been carefully maintained so that the original design and fabric contribute to our knowledge of pioneer vernacular craftsmanship.