The town was set off and incorporated on February 10, 1823, taking its name from the old fort. Farms produced hay and potatoes. With the arrival of steamboats in the 1830s, Richmond boomed as a shipbuilding and trade center on the navigable Kennebec River estuary. Among the more important shipbuilders were T. J. Southard, also considered one of the town's "founding fathers". A brass foundry was established. The community also produced shoes, sails and wood products. Its peak years were between 1835 and 1857, endowing the town with a wealth of fine Greek Revival architecture. Richmond is believed to have been a site along the Underground Railroad. Richmond was once the center of the largest Slavic-speaking settlement in the United States. People of Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish heritage emigrated to the United States during World War II to settle along the Kennebec Valley. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was also a large influx of White Russian emigres, who earlier fled the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Russian emigres eventually came to Richmond from major US cities due to the similarity of rural Maine and the Russian Countryside. There were originally three Eastern Orthodox churches in the town, and the White Russian Corps was founded in 1953 under the leadership of the colony's founder, Russian Baron Vladimir Kuhn Von Poushental. Many of these settlers were retirees, and their families often chose not to remain there. For this reason, the Richmond White Russian community has now largely disappeared. One of the churches that they built, however, the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Alexander Nevsky, continues to function to this day. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Richmond is drained by Mill Brook, Abagadasset River and Kennebec River. Peacock Beach State Park, established in May 2010, is a state park located on Pleasant Pond in Richmond. "See also:" Richmond (CDP), Maine  As of the census of 2010, there were 3,411 people, 1,420 households, and 965 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 1,629 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 97.3% White, 0.4% African American, 0.3% Native American, 0.2% Asian, 0.3% from other races, and 1.5% from two or more races.