When Richard Caswell Adkins was born in 1852, in Kentucky, United States, his father, Caswell Richard Adkins, was 51 and his mother, Margaret Peggy Connelly, was 34. He married Rhoda Ann Geddes on 22 December 1878, in Vernon, Wisconsin, United States. They were the parents of at least 7 sons and 3 daughters. He lived in Fennimore, Grant, Wisconsin, United States in 1860 and Sioux, Iowa, United States in 1895. He died on 9 December 1898, in Sioux Township, Clay, Iowa, United States, at the age of 46, and was buried in Sioux City, Woodbury, Iowa, United States.