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Richard
Bladworth Hardie (1848 - 1917)
Richard Bladworth
Hardie was born on 16 July 1848 in Edinburgh. He was the eighth
child and seventh son of James
Hardie and Sarah Bladworth.
Richard wrote
a letter to his cousin John Timmons Hardie (who was 20 years his
senior) in either 1866 or 1867 enquiring about opportunities in
the United states. In a 1867 letter from his mother to Mary Mead
Hall Hardie (John Hardie's widow) Sarah says William "... has
written to his cousin John Timmons Hardie in New Orleans, with no
reply." Obviously John T did eventually reply because in 1869
Richard emigrated to America, arriving in New Orleans where he worked
for his cousin John Timmons Hardie.
Richard returned
to England in 1878 to marry, which he did on 6 August 1879 at Christ's
Church, Chiswick, London, to Annie Elizabeth Ireland, of
Yorkshire, England. Annie was the daughter of William Ireland
of Reedness, Yorkshire. According to family lore, Annie was
left out of her father’s will because she married a Scotsman, but
it was most likely due to the traditional practice of leaving property
to the male child and a cash annuity to any unmarried daughters
(of which she was neither).
Perhaps it
was at that time that he arranged for his brother David
to join him, which he did about two years later. Richard brought
his wife Annie back to the United States in 1879 through New Orleans.
A yellow fever epidemic forced them to continue on to Texas where
they stopped first in Dallas. In
1880 Richard was working as a Commercial Merchant and he and Annie
were living with FB Waltem and his wife Mary in Dallas. Mr Waltem
was a doctor.
In about 1881
they moved to a ranch in Slidell, Texas. It was in Slidell that
the first two of their five children were born:
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William
Howat Hardie. Born 1882. Married Nina Partee and
Aimee Feltus Aldridge |
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James
Hardie. Born 1884. Married Lucille Anderson |
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Annie
Ireland Hardie. Born ?. Died 1952. Married Hardy Greenwood |
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John
Timmons Hardie. 1 Dec 1887. Died 14 Nov 1975. Married Harriet
Burd Goodman |
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Richard
Bladworth Hardie. 31 Aug 1890. Died 1974. Married Mary
Belle Rice on 14 Aug 1916 |
In 1882 Richard's
brother David joined him in Texas, but in 1886 the small family
moved to Arkansas where Richard managed a plantation called Red
Leaf near Lake Village, Arkansas. According to family oral history
tradition, Red Leaf had been owned by Wade Hampton and a grandson
of John C. Calhoun, but it was sold to a New York banker who hired
Richard to manage it.
It is uncertain
when Richard returned to Dallas, but in 1899 he and his brother
David opened the Hardie
Seed Company, which was located on Elm St Dallas in 1914. The company
continued to be run by David and Richard's sons after his death.
The family lived
at 2709 Howell St, Dallas, and it is here that Richard died on 14
July 1917. Interestingly according to a newspaper story at the time
of his death in 1917, he was “a resident of Texas since 1878.”
Annie Eliza
outlived her husband by nearly twenty years, becoming an active
member of the Westminster Presbyterian Church. She moved in with
her daughter Annie and her husband Hardy Greenwood and it was here
she died on 26 October 1936. An obituary notice at the time of her
death tells that she “came to Dallas as a bride in 1879 and had
been here practically all of the time since."
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