William Richard was the first generation in the Richard family of woodcarvers. He was born in Rogersville, NB and worked as a logger in New Brunswick beginning at the age of eighteen, William moved to Maine on January 1, 1921, and continued logging.  William started carving before he moved to Maine and while in the woods he carved tool handles, made spruce gum books (little boxes that held spruce gum) for himself and others, and whittled peach pits into various objects (a very difficult task because they are a hard material). He became best known for his fan towers, which he learned to carve from Raymond Bolduc while they both served a few months in jail for bootlegging in the 1920s. In 1980, he was living in Phillips, Maine.