| According
to Billon's biographical sketch of Riddick, he
was born Thomas Fiveash Riddick in Suffolk,
Nanesmond Co., Virginia on 05 Jun 1781, and was
the son of Thomas Riddick and Fanny Fiveash. He
came to St. Louis in about 1804 and on the 8th of
August in 1812, he married Eliza Carr, the
daughter of Charles Carr, in Lexington, Kentucky. In November of 1816 Riddick
opened a downtown auction house with Joshua
Pilcher, who had come to St. Louis from Lexington
and had had a business partnership with N.S.
Anderson selling dry goods and renting space to
other merchants; and before coming to St. Louis
Pilcher had apprenticed under his brother-in-law,
Hiram Shaw, who was a hatter.
Riddick, Thomas
Benton, and probably Joshua, allied themselves to
the new banking institution which was backed by
several powerful French families who needed a
bank to support their investment in the fur trade
north and west of St. Louis, and for two decades
Riddick would be an extremely influential
businessman in that city.
He built his home,
pictured above, on South Fourth Street, opposite
Plum Street, in the neighborhood that would come
to be known as Carondolet. At the time the home
was situated here, there was no Fourth Street
south of Elm, and the home was approached from
the east by Plum Street. Set on a stone
foundation, made of brick with a double rear
porch, it was built in 1818, and was Riddick'
home until he removed to Jefferson county. It was
later opened by Blanchard and Storrs as a public
resort, called the Vaux Hall Garden, subsequently
occupied by Major Faysseau, U.S. Quarter Master,
and then by Judge Luke E. Lawless, who died in
it.
Thomas Riddick
died in Jefferson Co., at Sulphur Springs on 15
Jan 1830 at the age of forty-eight years, seven
months, and ten days. He was survived by his
widow Eliza (Carr) and children: Walter, Dabney,
Virginia Brooks and Frances Billon.
Joshua, who became
a fur trader, Indian Agent, and succeeded William
Clark as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, died
in 1843. It is clear that his relationship with
Riddick was a close one as he included Riddick's
widow and family in his will. He appointed Edward
Brooks, Druggist of the City of City Louis, as
his sole Exector, and mentions Susan Brooks, his
sister Margaret Shaw of Lexington and her sons
Nathaniel and Hiram; John Haverty of St. Louis,
Mrs. Eliza M. Riddick, wife of the late Colonel
Thomas F. Riddick. Also mentioned was daughter of
Charles P. Billon, and John Randolph Benton, the
latter being the only son of Colonel Thomas H.
Benton.
Bellefontaine
Cemetery is the final resting place of both
Riddick and Pilcher as well as many other
notables of St. Louis.
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