THEORIES OF RELATEEVEETY: WHEN MAJOR SETH ADAMS MET... MARY RICHARDS?

SETH ADAMS

[STATEN ISLAND, 1859]

In 1859, Major Seth Adams was trying to build his reputation as a manager for prize-fighters in New York City when he first met Constable Dan Hogan of the City's police force.  Dan took up the challenge to fight Adams' fighter known as "The Tinsmith", putting down his own money in a bet with Adams at 4 to 1 odds against him.  Constable Hogan went on to win the fight (more or less easily) and reaped $2500 for his efforts, which led to Seth Adams retirement from the prize-fighting business and squashed his plans to become a showman.

DAN & MARY RICHARDS HOGAN

[SWEET SABBATH, KANSAS, 1866]

With this money he was able to provide a secure future for himself and the woman he loved - Mary Richards, the daughter of John Richards, the NYC Police Commissioner.  They got married and then headed west, eventually buying a ranch just outside the town of Sweet Sabbath.

Mary got pregnant during the wagon train journey west and she gave birth to a daughter they named Jenny in 1860.  A few years later she was joined by her little brother, Dan, Jr.  (The boy was never named in the episode, only referred to as "your younger brother" when talking to Jenny.  But I think it would be logical to expect that he would be named for his father.)

JENNY HOGAN AND HER FATHER DAN

Eventually when Jenny grew up, she married a man who swept her away from Sweet Sabbath, north to Roseburg, Minnesota.  (I'm assuming Sweet Sabbath was located in Kansas.)

Jenny's daughter married a man with the same last name as her grandmother's - Richards.  In 1912, Mrs. Richards gave birth to a son whom they named Walter Reed Richards.

Walter Reed Richards was probably named in honor of Dr. Walter Reed, the US Army physician who had died ten years previously.  Just the year before, in 1901, Dr. Richards and his team proved that a certain species of mosquito was the carrier for yellow fever.  The timing was beneficial for Mary Hogan's grand-daughter as the man she would one day marry had been suffering from yellow fever while working on the Panama Canal.  

Thanks to the work done by Dr. Richards, a cure was administered which saved his life and he headed home to Minnesota where he would meet the young woman who would eventually become his wife.

When Dr. Richards and his wife Dorothy (aka "Dottie") had their daughter, it was Walt's mother who suggested that the baby be named after her own grandmother, Mary Richards Hogan, to bring that name back to life in their family tree.

DR. WALTER REED RICHARDS & HIS DAUGHTER MARY

[MINNEAPOLIS, NOVEMBER 1972] 

And that's how a TV Western couple is related to the former news producer of WJM-TV.

(Mary Richards would one day marry Congressman Cronin, who later died while mountain climbing.  They had one daughter, Rose, who may have had children of her own by now.)

BCnU!

PS:

John Richards was only the NY Police Commissioner in Toobworld, but he can be shoe-horned into the list of the real commissioners.  George Washington Matsell served as the Superintendent of Police until 1857, but there would not be an actual police comissioner - John Alexander Kennedy - until 1860.  So Richards could have served in the post for that two year interregnum......

BCnU!