J. Havens Richards, SJ Papers

Joseph Havens Richards (1851-1923) was born in Ohio as Havens Cowles Richards to parents Henry L. (1814-1903) and Cynthia Cowles Richards (1821-1900, m. 1842) alongside his four siblings. His father, an ordained Episcopalian minister, converted to Catholicism in 1852, after which the family relocated to Jersey City. Richards attended public school there until 1865 and, following a brief hiatus, accompanied his father to Boston where he worked as a bookkeeper and enrolled at Boston College in 1869. Richards left Boston College a year early in 1872 to enter the Society of Jesus at Frederick under the name Joseph Havens Richards (1872-1875). He completed his philosophical studies at Woodstock College (1875-1878) and his regency at Georgetown College, where he taught physics and mathematics (1878-1883). Returning to Woodstock for his theology (1883-1887), he was ordained prematurely in 1885 due to his father’s illness and completed his tertianship at Frederick (1887-1888).

Richards served as president of Georgetown University from 1888 to 1898, during which he oversaw the completion of the interior of Healy Hall; the construction of Dahlgren Chapel and the Law School; the establishment of the Georgetown University Hospital; and preparations for the university’s centennial celebration in 1889. He also introduced formal graduate studies in 1891 and supported the expansion of both the law and medical schools.

Following his presidency, Richards served at Frederick (1898-1899), Boston College (1899-1900), and the Los Gatos, California, novitiate (1900-1901) as a spiritual father. He subsequently returned to Frederick (1901-1903) and St. Andrew-on-Hudson (1903-1906), where he held the offices of minister and procurator, and then again to Boston College as a spiritual father (1906-1909). From 1909 to 1913 and again from 1915 to 1919, Richards served at Loyola School and St. Ignatius Church in New York City and was rector of both institutions as well as Regis High School during the latter period. In the intervening years, he was minister and prefect of studies at Canisius College (Buffalo, 1913-1915) and, from 1919 to 1922, he served as superior at Keyser Island. Beginning in 1922 he was procurator and spiritual father at Weston College and died at the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester) in 1923.