Lawyer and Law Writer.
Louis Richards, law writer and member of the Bar of Berks county, Pennsylvania, was born May 6, 1842, at Gloucester Furnace, Atlantic county, New Jersey, of which his father, John Richards, was proprietor. The latter, a native of Berks county, came of a vigorous stock of Welsh descent, his ancestors having settled in Amity township as early as 1718. He was for many years of his long and active life engaged in the iron manufacturing business, principally in the State of New Jersey, representing also Gloucester county in the Assembly in 1836 and 1837. From 1848 to 1854 he resided at Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, as proprietor of the Carbon Iron Works at that place, and in the latter year retired to a handsome country seat known as "Stowe," in the vicinity of Pottstown, Montgomery county, where he died November 29, 1871, at the patriarchal age of eighty-eight. The subject of this sketch was his youngest son, and only child by his second wife, Louisa (Silvers) Richards, a native of Monmouth county. New Jersey, descended upon the maternal side from the well known Rogers family of that section, and, in the third generation, from Henry Lawes Luttrell, Second Earl of Carhampton. Employed in early life as an instructor of youth, she was distinguished for her mental culture, marked individuality of character, and social tastes and accomplishments. Her decease occurred January 26, 1880, when well advanced in her eighty-first year.
Mr. Richards received his preliminary education in the public schools of Mauch Chunk, and subsequently took an academical course, attending the West Jersey Collegiate School at Mount Holly, New Jersey, the Hill School at Pottstown, and the Upland Normal Institute at Chester, Pennsylvania. In November, 1861, he came to reside at Reading, commenced the study of the law under the direction of his cousin, John S. Richards, Esq., a highly talented and widely-known practitioner at the Berks County Bar, and was admitted to practice January 16, 1865. While a student he served in the Pennsylvania Militia, during the invasions of the State by the Confederate armies in 1862 and 1863.
Having an early inclination to write, he contributed largely to the press, both before and after his admission to the Bar, furnishing incidentally accurate reports of all the cases tried in the county courts during the greater part of the period in which they were presided over by the Hon. Warren J. Woodward. In 1869 he married, and engaged in journalism, becoming a partner of the firm of J. Knabb & Co., in the publication of the "Reading Times and Dispatch," and the "Berks and Schuylkill Journal," the daily and weekly organs of the Republican party in Berks. In 1871 he resold his interest to the firm, and resumed the practice of the law. In 1875 he purchased his father's estate at "Stowe," which he occasionally occupied until 1882, when he disposed of it to the Pottstown Iron Company, which erected thereon a very large manufacturing plant.
For many years Mr. Richards devoted much attention to municipal law, and the municipal affairs of his adopted city. While serving as a member of its Councils in 1875-76 he personally revised, amended and codified its local laws, and published in the latter year the first Digest of the Statutes and Ordinances of Reading. Of this work he subsequently compiled two other and more elaborate editions, containing many valuable notes and citations of judicial decisions. In December, 1876, he was selected as Secretary of the State Municipal Commission, appointed by Governor Hartranft to devise a uniform plan for the better government of the cities of Pennsylvania. Of this body, which was composed of eleven eminent lawyers and citizens of the State, the Hon. Butler B. Strang was chairman. The Commission presented its final report to the Legislature in January, 1878, and the principal features of the code which it submitted were subsequently incorporated in the Act of June 1, 1885, for the government of the City of Philadelphia, known as the "Bullitt Bill." As a member of committees appointed by the Inter-Municipal Conventions of 1886 and 1888, Mr. Richards was deputed to prepare the original drafts of the Acts of May 24, 1887, and May 23, 1889, the latter constituting the frame of government of cities of the third class in Pennsylvania. In these several capacities he rendered much valuable service to the people of the State, and acquired a wide reputation as a skillful draftsman of municipal statutes. He is a charter member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, organized in 1895; a vice-president (1914), and chairman of its committee on legal biography. In the interest of law reform he devised and secured the passage by the Legislature of the Act of July 9, 1897, "declaring the construction of words in a deed, will or instrument, importing a failure of issue."
In 1889, in association with the Hon. G.A. Endlich, Additional Law Judge of the Berks district, then also a practitioner at the Bar, he was the author of a treatise upon the "Rights and Liabilities of Married Women in Pennsylvania," devoted principally to the exposition of the Married Persons' Property Act of 1887, which greatly enlarged the contractual powers of femmes covert. In 1895 he issued, in two volumes, the "Pennsylvania Form Book," containing precedents in the various branches of law practice--a work in general use by the profession throughout the State--and, in 1898, a "Digest of Acts of Assembly for the Government of Cities of the Third Class," which was followed by two successive editions. His other published productions include numerous law pamphlets, historical and genealogical sketches, and reports and addresses upon various subjects of professional or general interest. Profoundly devoted to antiquarian researches, he has since 1903 been president of the Historical Society of Berks county, giving to its affairs much attention and intelligent direction. He is also a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and an occasional contributor to its "Magazine of History and Biography." His only business connection is with the Charles Evans Cemetery Company, of which he has been for the past twenty years the efficient secretary and treasurer.
Distinguished for his public spirit, he has employed his time and talents in the promotion of every movement in the line of progress, good government and reform. In politics Mr. Richards is a Republican, and in the presidential campaign of 1884, was the candidate of the minority party in the Berks District for Congress, against Daniel Ermentrout, the sitting member, receiving 9,405 votes. His political views are, however, strongly tempered with the spirit of independence, which inclines to subordinate mere partisan considerations to the superior obligations of individual good citizenship.
As a member of the Bar he is recognized as a highly reputable, accurate and painstaking practitioner, though it is in the capacity of a writer of marked vigor and skill, that he is best known to the public. His literary tastes are cultured and absorbing, and it is in the companionship of his books, and the environment of the student, that he finds his chief entertainment and solace. Practical and thorough in all his methods and undertakings, he devotes to the performance of every duty in which he may engage his best abilities and most conscientious efforts.
Mr. Richards has four children--three sons and a daughter.
Source: Jordan, John W. Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania Biography, volume III. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1914, pp. 883-885.
Submitted by Nancy.