ALEXANDER KEENE RICHARDS
Keene Richards’ Early Years
The First Expedition To The Orient
Alexander Keene Richards was born on October 10, 1827, and came from a long line of notable ancestors. His mother, Elleonora, who died when he was 3, was a direct descendant of Richard Keene, who had immigrated to Maryland from Surry, England, in 1641. Alexander’s father, Dr. William Lewis Richards, descended from the Marquis de Calmes. He was a Huguenot who had immigrated to Virginia and died during a cholera epidemic in 1833. Consequently, his son Alexander, whose health had been poor since birth, was raised by his maternal grandparents, Dr. William Billingsley and Hanna (née Bodien Wallis) Keene, at their 600-acre Blue Grass Park estate near Georgetown, Ky.
In 1851, following his graduation from college, Alexander’s grandfather gave him the funds to travel abroad in the company of Joseph Desha Pickett, one of his former professors from Bethany College. The objective of Richards’ first of four trips overseas was to recuperate his frail health. However, instead of spending his time sightseeing, the young man dedicated his vacation to the study of as many different horse breeds as possible.
As a young man, Alexander attended Bethany College in West Virginia and studied for a full term in Alexander Campbell’s bible classes. The famous preacher was the author of more than 60 religious books and the founder of the Disciples of Christ denomination. His followers were generally known as “Campbellites.”
The two men fi rst sailed to England, where no cast of horses escaped Richards’ scrutiny, including the heavy draft horses used by the London breweries. While there, he and Pickett attended the Epsom Derby and studied the horses at most of the leading Thoroughbred farms. At length, they crossed the English Channel and visited several important equine production centers in Normandy before proceeding to Paris and thence to Spain.
An 1857 Edward Troye charcoal sketch of Alexander Keene Richards, reproduced by Linda White.
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