Six Generations of Richardsons:To and From the Big Muddy Valley

Book excerpt: This book presents the stories of the first six generations of the Richardson branch of the author's family in North America. The story begins in 1774 when John Richardson travels from Yorkshire, England to what became Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada. Settling on land originally homesteaded by politically displaced Acadians, John and two subsequent generations of Christopher's spend their lives farming in Sackville. In 1883, Robert Hay, John's great grandson, moves his family from their farm in Sackville to a homestead 3 miles east of Custer City, South Dakota in the heart of the Black Hills. While failing in its goal of saving Robert's wife Annie from Tuberculosis, it brought our family to the American West. After his death in 1897, three of Robert's sons, Fred, Bob, and Will, joined forces to create the Richardson Brothers Ranch in the Big Muddy Valley in what is now Sheridan County, Montana.