John P. Richmond

John Plastis Richmond (August 7, 1811 – August 28, 1895) was an American Methodist Episcopalian priest and politician who served in New York, Illinois, Mississippi, the Pacific Northwest, and South Dakota during the 19th century.

Richmond was born in Middletown, Maryland on August 7, 1811. His father's name was Francis. At 15, Richmond was converted and became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and graduated with a medical degree in 1833. He started to practice medicine in Middletown in 1834 and was licensed to exhort by his church. In 1835 he moved to Mississippi to practice medicine and on October 14, 1835 in Madison County, Mississippi he married America Walker Talley, the widow of Alexander Talley. Alexander was a prominent member of the church and was superintendent of the Choctaw Indian Mission. In April 1836, the pair moved to Rushville, Illinois, where Richmond preached. Over the following three years, Richmond was assigned to various preaching circuits and at various churches in Illinois, including the Pulaski Circuit, at McComb Station, and at Jacksonville. In 1839, Richmond met Jason Lee who was looking for missionaries who would go to Oregon. By that point, Richmond had one daughter with America and two step-daughters from her previous marriage.

In 1839, Richmond and his family began their move to Oregon. They travelled up the Illinois River and then by land to Chicago, and then by steam through the Great Lakes and Erie Canal to Troy, New York and then to New York City. On October 9, 1839, the family departed as a part of a company of 52 consisting of missionaries, teachers, and laymen on the ship, Lausanne. The ship sailed around Cape Horn, making dock at Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso, Chile, and the Sandwich Islands before arriving at Fort Vancouver on June 1, 1840. The missionaries met with Lee on June 13 and were assigned posts, Richmond appointed superintendent of the Nisqually Mission where he was sent with his family as well as a carpenter named Holden Willson and a teacher named Chloe Carke. Nisqually Mission was located near Fort Nisqually, and Richmond speant some time at the fort before arriving at the mission on July 10, 1842. In August, Richmond performed the marriage of Willson and Clarke, the first marriage of Europeans on Puget Sound. At the mission, Richmond was on territory contested between America and Great Britain, and Richmond worked to accommodate the multi-faceted politics of the two nations and the Indians. In 1841, he became acquainted with US Naval Officer and explorer, Charles Wilkes, and Richmond's speech on July 5, 1841 commemorating the first fourth of July celebration in the region, to a gathering which included Wilkes was noted for its patriotism in Oregon newspapers of the time. On September 1, 1842, Richmond and his family left Nisqually on The Chamamus, arriving in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1843 by way of the Sandwich Islands and Tahiti. There is some uncertainty why Richmond left, there may have been illness in his family, but he had also developed antagonism with Lee. This antagonism was serious, as in the future he may not have been a member of a Methodist Conference, although he continued to preach at Methodist Churches and Missions. The antagonism ended before Richmond's death and Richmond would later write fondly of Lee and the role he played in obtaining the Northwest for the United States.

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