His father, Jean Baptiste Ricord de Madianna, was a physician and naturalist who had escaped the French Revolution with his parents.

[3] Clients included Texan Sam Houston (above) and Hawaiian King Kamehameha III (below) Some time in the next few years another uncle, John Stryker, encouraged him to go to the Republic of Texas.

Ricord reached Velasco, Texas, in the summer of 1836 and was hired by President David G. Burnet as private secretary.

[6][7] He left from Vancouver, British Columbia in late 1843 with a group of missionaries including Jason Lee and Gustavus Hines.

He was described as:...a restless adventurer practicing law on the frontiers of American expansionism, ...he was a true frontiersman, acting in legal debate like a fast draw sheriff who dared his opponent to test him.

[12]Within a few weeks he swore allegiance to King Kamehameha III and on March 9, 1844, was appointed first Attorney General and Registrar of Conveyances of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

He made an attempt to talk William Tecumseh Sherman and Richard Barnes Mason, then military governor of California, into letting him design a government for the territory as he had done for Hawaii.

He is recorded as buying 6,102 acres (2,469 ha) of land surveyed by Chester Lyman in present-day Santa Clara County, California to the south of Rancho San Antonio.

He died in Paris on March 26, 1861, at the home of his uncle Philippe Ricord, personal physician to Napoleon III.