”Around the Capital” (detail), engraving, Thomas Fleming, 1902, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives

RICHARDSON, William, a Representative from Alabama; born in Athens, Limestone County, Ala., May 8, 1839; attended the public schools; during the Civil War served in the Confederate Army; paroled in April 1865 in Marietta, Ga.; member of the Alabama house of representatives 1865-1867; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1867 and commenced practice in Huntsville, Ala.; judge of the probate and county courts of Madison County, Ala., 1875-1886; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1904; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Joseph Wheeler; reelected to the Fifty-seventh and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from August 6, 1900, until his death in Atlantic City, N.J., where he had gone for the benefit of his health, on March 31, 1914; chairman, Committee on Pensions (Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses); interment in Maple Hill Cemetery, Huntsville, Ala.