Richard Morris Fontaine, son of Edmund and Maria Louisa Fontaine, was born on 8 August 1842 in Hanover County and was raised at Beaverdam plantation. He was educated at home by a tutor for several years and then went to Hanover Academy where he remained until 1860. He enlisted in the Confederate Army on 21 April 1861 as a private in Captain Richard H. Cunningham Jr.'s Company F of the 21st Virginia Infantry Regiment.

In October 1861 he and others in his company contracted typhoid fever while serving in northern Virginia. His case was so severe that he was transferred to a military hospital in Richmond, where his parents went to help tend to him. He was discharged on 26 November 1861 on disability and returned home to Beaverdam to farm. After the end of the war the house accidentally burned, with the family moving temporarily to Richmond while a new house was built.

Richard's father died at Beaverdam in 1869 and, because his older brothers were dead, he inherited Beaverdam. He lived there with his mother and siblings and, later, with his wife and children. He was married on 4 June 1874 in Hanover County with Thomasia "Kate" Meade Minor, daughter of Lucius Horatio Minor and Catherine Frances Berkeley of Edgewood plantation. Kate was born on 25 February 1849. They had six children; Kate died at the age of 51 on 23 April 1890.

In addition to his work on the plantation, Richard served as the chief clerk of the Virginia legislature after 1890, a position that required him to spend long periods of time in Richmond. Based on part on Kate's death, Richard and his children moved to Beaulieu in Albemarle County near Charlottesville. Beaverdam was sold to his brother-in-law, Thomas Broun, who in 1911 sold it outside of the family. Richard died on 15 October 1914 in Charlottesville and was buried next to Kate at Beaverdam.
(information provided by Brian Nilsson)