JULY 13, 1854

From the Nashville Christian Advocate

            It becomes my duty to announce, through your columns, the death of our venerable father and friend, Samuel Richardson, of Gibson county, Tenn. Brother Richardson was a native of Virginia, born in Couchland county, August 22, 1777, and grew up a young man of virtuous habits, and marked circumspection of life, and was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth T. Hopkins, who proved herself in all respects to be worthy of such a man, (and is now with God.) Soon after his marriage, he removed to Rutherford county, Tenn., and in a short time was happily converted to God, and united himself with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and from that hour to the day of his death, was received as a most exemplary member of the church.

            At an early date he pioneered with his family to the Western District of Tennessee, then a wild, unbroken forest and settled in Gibson county; and as soon as his rude cabins were reared, and in a condition to receive and shelter his family from the blasts of winter, his next thoughts were to the homeless missionaries of the cross, who had also pioneered into that almost pathless desert, and were wearily wandering from settlement to settlement in search of souls for whom Christ died. They ? at once introduced to his humble dwelling, in which ? found a cordial Christian welcome, and were persuaded to offer their message of mercy, and very soon a small society was formed in his house. A few years more, and a large and comfortable house of worship was erected on his land, and then a large and beautiful camp ground was reared up in the same neighborhood, at which hallowed place many have dated their conviction of sin, and their spiritual birth unto righteousness. At this sacred encampment, our venerable father Richardson always kept up a large tent, where the hospitalities of his table, like the richer and loftier provisions of the Spirit, were open and free to all that would partake. In this neighborhood he reared and educated a large and respectable family, and lived to see them all, with perhaps one or two exceptions, converted to God, and members of the church of his choice. But some are fallen asleep, and have been gathered into the garner of God. One of the departed was a Methodist preacher of hopeful promise, and the lamented Benjamin H. Hubbard, D.D., late of the Memphis Conference, was also his son-in-law, whose stricken widow and orphan children present strong claims to the prayers and sympathies of the church.

            Brother Richardson closed his earthly pilgrimage on the 24th of May last, in the 77th year of his age, in full assurance of hope, having been a Methodist about fifty years. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." The disease that was commissioned to sever the cords that bound him to the earth, was inflammatory pleurisy, which, after a few days of most acute pain, put a period to his earthly sufferings, but not until he had given the most satisfactory assurance that all was well, exclaiming, just before his departure, "Death has no terrors to me."

            His remains were committed to the dust in the family graveyard, amid the tears and sympathies of his children, and a numerous circle of friends, with whom he had long lived in the bonds of Christian fellowship, there to rest until called forth by Him to whom he had "committed himself in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator," at whose bidding he shall once more appear, all glorious and divine.