Background
He was born probably in 1704 in Liverpool, England, United Kingdom, the second son of Ralph Peters, a barrister, and Esther Presson.
He was born probably in 1704 in Liverpool, England, United Kingdom, the second son of Ralph Peters, a barrister, and Esther Presson.
Richard finished the academic course at Westminster School before he was fifteen.
His parents hearing of his clandestine marriage thereupon removed him to Leyden to study for three years. On returning to England he spent five years, against his will, at the Inner Temple studying law.
Oxford conferred on him the degree of D. D. (1770).
A persistent desire to take orders conquered him and he became a deacon in the Church of England (1730) and a priest (1731), and in the latter year matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford.
But criticism of his early marriage and the discovery that his second marriage was bigamous caused him so much unhappiness that about 1735 he decided to emigrate to Philadelphia. There he became assistant to the Rev. Archibald Cummings at Christ Church (1736) and is said to have "wriggled himself into the affections of the multitudes, who have generally been bred dissenters". An open quarrel with Cummings soon led to his withdrawal from the post. Two discourses, The Two Last Sermons Preached at Christ's-church in Philadelphia, July 3, 1737 (1737), were a defense against Cummings' attacks upon his character and against charges that he was a papist.
Obliged to seek secular employment, Peters accepted in 1737 an appointment as secretary of the provincial land office which he held until 1760. He was also admitted to the Philadelphia bar. When Cummings died (1741), Peters' friends pressed his name as successor, but the conservatives in the congregation, fearing a rector with such strong proprietary sympathies, blocked his appointment. On February 14, 1742/43, he was appointed provincial secretary and private secretary for the proprietaries, and clerk of the council, and on May 19, 1749, provincial councilor. As provincial secretary he superintended Indian affairs and went on frequent missions to the Indians, including the Albany Congress (1754) and the conference at Fort Stanwix (1768). He was suspicious of the Quaker hegemony in Pennsylvania, repeatedly wrote of "Quaker plots" to injure the proprietors with the King, and diligently endeavored to collect quit rents and to prosecute Scotch-Irish and German squatters.
He retired as secretary and clerk of the council early in January 1762 with a comfortable fortune acquired from the Indian trade, but remained provincial councilor until 1776. In 1762 Peters returned to the ministry, as rector of Christ and St. Peter's churches, though not actually receiving his license until he visited England in 1764-65.
Failing health compelled him to resign his rectorship on September 23, 1775. Peters died in Philadelphia in 1776.
For a zealous Highchurchman he was exceedingly tolerant, especially in later life. Toward the Quakers, whom he earlier viewed with distrust, he later developed a warm feeling.
He firmly believed that a thorough classical education was the best means of remedying existing social evils. He was assiduous in building up the churches spiritually and numerically and toward their financial needs contributed generously from his own purse.
He was a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Sincerely pious without ostentation, Peters was a polished and erudite scholar and a sound thinker, though sometimes given to quixotic views.
He entered into a clandestine marriage with a servant maid. They later separated. His second marriage - to a Miss Stanley.