SITE OF MANSION

Inscription

SITE OF MANSION
BUILT BY COL. WILLIAM DAVIS
CA. 1839. LATER THE HOME OF
DEAN RICHMOND, PRESIDENT NY
CENTRAL RR, & WIFE MARY WHO
BUILT THE RICHMOND LIBRARY.
WILLIAM G. POMEROY FOUNDATION 2013

This site was part of the property owned by Dean and Mary Richmond. The mansion faced onto East Main Street with elaborate formal gardens and a greenhouse located in the rear of the property where the library now stands. Part of the property’s elegant wrought iron fence still stands along East Main Street. The original portion of the home was built ca. 1839 by William Davis. The Richmonds acquired the property in 1854 and expanded it to accommodate their lifestyle and their family of six children. Mary continued to live in the mansion after her husband’s death in 1866. In February 1885, her son Dean Richmond Jr. died there at age 32 from typhoid malarial fever. The original section of the Richmond Library was built by his mother in 1889 as a tribute to him. The mansion passed down in the family until it was sold in 1928 to become the Genesee County Children’s Home. After several years of neglect, the building was torn down in 1970 and the property sold to the adjoining church for a parking lot.