Francis was born in about 1827 to free African-American parents in Surry County, Virginia.
[1][2] By 1848 he was in Washington, D.C., where he worked at Hancock's bar on 12th and Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest for almost four decades.
[3] He began working as a porter (a combination barback and janitor), but soon became a bartender.
[3] He was a friend and confidant to a wide range of Washington politicians, reportedly including antebellum senators Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster,[4] causing the Nashville American to note that "One thing is certain, no other man in this country has faced more great men than Dick.
[5] Cocktail historian Dave Wondrich reports that, while the record is fragmentary, the first Black bartender for Congress was an individual by the name of Carter in the 1830s to 1850s, and Francis is believed therefore to be the second Black bar manager for Congress.