Our History
The Beginning
It was in the mid summer of 1874 in Antigua when James Peter Richards also called Peter Nanton Richards (age 35) of Nanton Hill and Maria Elizabeth Spencer also called Shuri Odlum (age 23) from Lyon's Farm, started a family when their first child Catherine Augusta Spencer Richards also called Eliza was born. One year later in 1875 the couple exchanged vows and were joined together in marriage at the Gracehill Moravian Church in Liberta Village. View the original marriage certificate here.
In 1890 at age 39, Maria gave birth to her seventh child and only boy Henry James Richards fondly nicknamed King. It can be assumed that the family settled at Nanton Hill in Swete's village and would have raised all their children together into adulthood.
Maria Elizabeth Spencer lived another 24 years after the birth of Henry before passing in 1914 at age 63. The cause of her death was unknown, but we strongly believe that she would have had the privilege of seeing a few of her grand children before her passing, for at that time her first daughter Eliza had already celebrated her 40th birthday.
This is all the information we have about our dear 'mother' Maria who now resides in our mind.
The Generations
With the absence of their mother, life went on with the children starting families of their own and contributing to the growth of the Richards' clan.
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Eliza, Ann and Misis had four children each, Susanna Sakie had three. With his children grown, Peter made a decision to migrate to Trinidad. It is said that he journeyed there to meet a brother who was already established. This caused the members of the Richards family to be present on two islands.
After the migration the family connection was not as strong as before since Information was not easily shared, family ties got broken, stories about family history got lost, were forgotten or were distorted. Very few members of the family in Antigua knew of their relatives down south. Those that did had little idea of why and how the migration took place and how many cousins now lived in Trinidad. Some of the cousins from Trinidad had visited their close relatives in Antigua but knew very little about their extended family up north.
It would take more than one hundred years for the descendants of Peter and Maria to start tracing their roots, understanding the migration of Peter and planning to meet at the first family reunion in 2004.
The Migration
Family legend has it that while Peter gave all of his children the option to migrate he initially made the journey alone. Sometime after he had settled four of the children (Anna Thama, Ann Nenie, Susanna Sakie & Henry King) joined him, leaving the other three (Eliza, Ann & Misis) in Antigua.
The exact times and dates of these migrations are unknown. Susanna Sakie had two children of her own in Antigua, her daughter Margaret Anthony (Olive) who stayed back with her father, and her son David Hudson Anthony whom she took with her to Trinidad. She later gave birth to another daughter Evalina who eventually had four children of her own.
Henry King later migrated from Trinidad arriving in Vanceboro Maine USA in 1923 and eventually settling in Brooklyn New York in 1924. In 1938, Uncle Henry sent for his nephew David Hudson Anthony and his niece, Eldra Brewster, to join him. There was sporadic communication between the branches until our very first reunion weekend July 23rd-25th 2004 in Antigua.
Our First Reunion
Talk about having a reunion had been bandied about since the early 1970s but it was only in the 2000s that a few family members got together and set out to plan a reunion in Antigua, the home country of Peter and Maria.
One of the main persons behind the planning was De'Ann Brodie the daughter of Caleb Brodie who had emigrated to the USA in 1948, along with Hugh Burroughs and other cousins too numerous to mention who put their all into this event. See the letter that started it all here.
The planning of the reunion was an exciting time for everyone. After it was announced, families travelled from Trinidad, Virgin Islands, USA and Great Britain to be a part of this gathering. Everyone was looking forward to meeting and greeting family members they didn't know anything about. It was well planned and executed, and it was the start of something that has changed the lives of the Richards' family forever.