Biography

George W. Richardson was the fourth child of John and Eliza Richardson of Auburn, New York. George was educated at Auburn Academy, from which he graduated in 1840 with the equivalent of a high school diploma. After a year and a half working as a clerk in a local dry goods store, he began an arduous study of cabinetmaking under his father's tutelage. 

At the age of 19, chafing at this work, he suddenly left home for New Bedford, Mass. (following in his brother DeWitt's footsteps) to spend two and a half years on the whaling vessel, Minerva, cruising the North and South Pacific and Indian Ocean. Returning to New Bedford in March 1847, he soon after sailed as a crew member with Capt. Edward C. Marshall on the ship Isaac Wright for one round-trip from New York to Liverpool.

Back in Auburn by 1848, George and DeWitt joined the Cayuga Joint Stock Company with 58 other Cayuga County men to equip a ship and sail around the Horn to San Francisco to prospect for gold. Departing from NYC on February 24, 1849, George and DeWitt's sailing experience was of great value on the seven-month voyage. The brothers spent a year and a half near the North Fork of the American River, finding just enough gold to support themselves and to pay for their trip home.

While DeWitt returned home to help older brother Lewis run the family business following the death of their father in 1849, George spent the next several years in NYC working in the jewelry trade with his sister Adeline's husband, James C. Wood. 

When the Civil War broke out, George enrolled on December 16, 1861, at NYC and was later mustered in as captain of Co. K, 11th NY Cavalry (popularly known as Scott's 900). On March 22, 1862, he married Ellen Cline King, at Albany, and their only son, Frank Wood, was born on December 24, 1862--one month after George was mustered in as major. In the beginning, Scott's 900 was posted in Washington, DC as Provost Guard of the district, serving as Lincoln's official guard and escort. In early 1864, the regiment was ordered to the Department of the Gulf, where it spent the rest of the war in mosquito-infested, swampy, Louisiana, guarding 3 valuable sugar plantations and generally making trouble for the local rebels. George's wife and son joined him in New Orleans. George was mustered out on July 21, 1865, at Memphis and returned to Auburn with his wife and son.

After the war, George joined DeWitt in running the family furniture business. When DeWitt died in 1882, George's son, Frank (after graduation from college in 1884) joined the business, which was renamed G.W. Richardson & Son. In 1905, at the age of 80, George finally retired, leaving the business in Frank's able hands. 

George enjoyed good health to the end of his long and adventure-filled life. He died on June 25, 1919, at the age of 93.