Matthias Richards was born near Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He had many siblings, including an older brother John Richards. His schooling was with a private tutoring, as was typical of many families then.
In 1788 Richards was appointed a justice of the peace and held this office for forty years. He was appointed a judge of Berks County Courts (1791–1797) by GovernorShulze, a nephew.
After being elected to Congress, Richards was appointed an inspector of customs (1801–1802). He was appointed collector of revenue for the ninth district of Pennsylvania in 1813, and clerk of the orphans' court for Berks County in 1823. He also worked at mercantile pursuits in Reading, Pennsylvania, until his death there on August 4, 1830.
Marriage and family
Having become an artisan and saddler, Richards married Maria Salome Muhlenberg ("Sally"), then at age 15, on May 8, 1782. She was the youngest child of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg.[1] Among their children was John William Richards, who became a minister. His son Matthias Henry Richards became a professor of English at Muhlenberg College in 1868.[2] His grandson Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards was an American military officer who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and then as a Captain in the United States Navy during the Spanish–American War. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards also married a Van Leer whose family owned most of Reading, Pennsylvania at the time. This is where Richards was laid to rest and the city where he spent most of his life, and was interred at that city's Charles Evans Cemetery.
^Wallace, Paul A. W. (1950). The Muhlenbergs of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 90. She was only fifteen when, on May 8, 1782, she was married to Matthias Richards, a prosperous saddler of Boyertown, Pennsylvania.
^Foster, Gordon B., ed. (1942-05-23), "THE EPIC STORY OF THE HEROIC MUHLENBERG FAMILY", The epic story of the heroic Muhlenberg family, Muhlenberg College, May twenty-fourth to June first, 1942, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania: MUHLENBERG BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, Inc., retrieved 2010-09-06