Linda Richards was born on July 27, 1841, the youngest daughter of Sanford Richards, an itinerant preacher, and his wife, Betsy Sinclair Richards. Her parents were married in Newport, Vermont in the mid-1830s and moved to a farm near the Racquette River in West Potsdam, NY. Linda was christened Malinda Ann Jusdon Richards by her father in hopes she would someday be a missionary like Ann Judson Hasseltine.