Richard Stafford was born around 1830 in Virginia. A blacksmith who ran his own shop for a number of years, Richard was an early arrival in Ypsilanti. He is here by the 1860 Federal Census with Mary, his wife born in South Carolina, and four children. It is possible he came even earlier.
In 1870 and 1880, his wife is listed as Clarissa, born in Clarissa Armstrong in Kentucky around 1835. Clarissa died in 1892. Richard and Clarissa are living on Adams Street by 1882. In 1900 he is listed as living with his niece, Minnie Manley, born in Michigan in 1854. Richard died in 1902; he had two children who survived into adulthood, Walter and Jesse.
