Olney (Richard) is born in Oxford.

The son of a successful cotton manufacturer, Richard Olney graduates from Brown University and Harvard Law School, and moves to Boston in 1859 to work in the law office of Judge Benjamin Thomas, and marries the judge’s daughter Agnes in 1861. He subsequently maintains a law office at 23 Court Street, specializing in railroad law. After living in Jamaica Plain and various houses in the Back Bay, Olney builds his own house at 415 Commonwealth Avenue in 1884.* He serves as U.S. attorney general (1893-95) and secretary of state (1896-97). Olney dies on April 8, 1917.