Elias Smith Richardson, M.D., practicing physician and surgeon at Reed City, was born April 11, 1842, in Kent Co., Ont. His grandfather, Edward Robinson, was a pioneer of Michigan, and died in Detroit in 1810, where he was in the hotel business. After his death, his family removed to the homestead in Kent Co., Ont. Isaac M. Richardson, the father of Dr. Richardson, was born July 2, 1805, in Detroit, and died in May, 1882, near St. Charles, Saginaw Co., Mich. The mother Mary A. (Smith) Richardson, was born in 1813, in Niagara Co., Ont., and died in 1865, in Oakland Co., Mich. Their family comprised 14 chidren, eight of whom survive.Dr. Richardson is the eigth of his parents' children in order of birth. He was reared on a farm and obtained a fair education, which he utilized in the profession of teaching, engaging in that vocation five years and attending the union school at Pontiac between the terms of labor. In October, 1868, he entered the Medical Department of the University at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated with the class of 1870. In obtaining his credentials he opened an office at Pontiac as preliminary to a medical career. After a trial of six months he decided on a change of locality and went to the Saginaw Valley, operating in that region four years. Becoming convinced of the deleterious effects of the malarial climate, another change of location was inevitable, and Dr. Richardson, in 1874, fixed upon Osceola County as a desirable field for his business, and also to re-establish the vigor he had lost in the miasmatic climate of the Saginaw region. He began his practice at Evart, removing thence in 1876 to Reed City and established himself permanently as a practitioner. He is the oldest resident physician at that point, and has securred a substantial recognition of the genuineness of his merits in his professional capacity, and by his conscientious discharge of duty, his abilities and skill, and his character as a cultivated, self-respecting gentleman he has won the confidence which is the crown of his manhood. He possesses traits of decision and independent judgement which place him beyond the pale of modern empirics, and he repudiates the pretensions and criminal tendencies of the schools of quackery in medical practice with all the disgust and contempt which are their inherent and fundamental deserts.In 1873 Dr. Richardson was made a member of the State Medical Society of Michigan, and in 1883, by special invitation, attended the American Medical Association at Cleveland. He was at one time a regular correspondent of the Medical Summary, and is still an occasional contributor to its columns. He is a member of the Union Medical Society of Northern Michigan; and belongs to the Reed City Lodge, No. 316, I.O.O.F. He has officiated five years as Meteorological Observer in behalf of the State Board of Health, and two years as Observer for the United States Signal Service. Dr. Richardson has been County Physician one year, and has officiated two years as Coroner.He was married Sept. 1, 1869, in Romeo, Macomb Co., Mich., to Clarinda M. Waugh, and they have four children: Merari A., who was born June 15, 1870, in Pontiac; Judson E., July 29, 1872, in Saginaw; Clare W., Dec. 22, 1877, at Reed City, where also Don Dio was born Feb. 24, 1881. Mrs. Richardson was born July 10, 1841, in Bloomfield, Oakland Co., Mich., and is the daughter of Sheldon and Charlotte Waugh. Her parents came to New York to Bloomfield in 1825, where they joined the pioneer agricultural element. Her father died Aug. 18, 1874, at Pontiac; her mother is yet living in Oakland County.
The period through which the country was passing during the later youth of Dr. Richardson and which awoke in him a conscientious interest, shaped his convictions on general topics after radical methods. He was a staunch Republican from the outset of his active political career, and also of decided temperence principles. He believed politics to be the medium to secure redress from all immpral grievances, and felt compelled to change his convictions regarding the integrity of the pretensions of the Republican party concerning prohibition of the liquor traffic. Accordingly, in December, 1860, associated with others of similar opinions, he organized a Prohibition Club for the purpose of awakening a local interest in the matter. After the organization of the Union party at Jackson, Jan. 9, 1884, he moved that the club adopt its principles and operate in harmony with its object. At the first local election thereafter a temperence ticket was put in the field, which was defeated by the joint action of the Democrats and Republicans. The indignation, disgust and contempt of Dr. Richardson over this result led him to the renunciation of the old party and to become its bitter opponent in all its temperence pretensions.
