In the book's own words, not ours, with obvious scanning errors fixed. Families often supplied these stories to the publisher, so check key dates.
Born 1834
From History of Henry County, Illinois (1910)
JEREMIAH FENNER RICHMOND.
At the Richmond homestead in Middleboro, Massachusetts, Jeremiah Fenner Richmond was born, November 19, 1834. He was the oldest son of Isaiah and Eliza A. (Fenner) Richmond. When about three years of age, he went with his parents to live at Scituate, Rhode Island, and was ten years old when the family came to Tremont, Illinois, in 1844, later to Groveland and finally to Geneseo in 1854. Here he learned the carpenter's trade of Harry McArthur and assisted in building the first home of the Richmonds in Geneseo, at the south end of State street. He married, March 31, 1856, Celia Manville, and for several years Geneseo was their home. They afterward Hved in Chicago, Omaha and Marysville, California, where he died May 5, 1879. While living in Omaha, their son Ralph was born, who married and lived in Greene, New York, where his two children were born — Celia Manville and Ralph, Jr.
During the Civil war, Mr. Richmond enlisted as private in the Ninth Illinois Cavalry, but later was transferred to the commissary department. After the close of the war, he again engaged in carpentry and removing to Chicago he became an extensive and successful contractor. Here he met George Francis Train, who was interested in the development of Omaha and contracted with him for the erection of numerous buildings in that growing city.
During the extension of the Union Pacific Railroad, he contracted for the construction of stations and necessary buildings along the line of the railway, in many places the work being guarded from the depredations of hostile Indians. He amassed quite a fortune for those days, but later lost heavily in contracting for the erection of a large hotel in Cheyenne.
After her husband's death in Marysville, California, May 5, 1879, s. Richmond returned to Geneseo, where she remained for a time, later going to live with her sister, Mrs. Hattie (Manville) Calkins, in Galesburg, Illinois, and at whose home she died.
As printed in History of Henry County, Illinois (1910). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.
The printed record stops around 1910. We trace your line from there down to you, with every source cited.