Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 104

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Mississippi > Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II > Part 104

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manly strength and physical perfection. The fine steel engraving of Colonel Richardson which faces this sketch was made expressly for this history, and is an excellent likeness. He may be justly termed a representative Southern man. He was by far the largest planter of cotton in the world, having for many years over twenty-three thousand acres of land under cultivation. To the practical planter, familiar with the difficulties of cotton planting, these figures speak volumes; no one else can appreciate the executive ability requisite to conduct successfully such immense planting operations.

In other fields of enterprise Colonel Richardson was equally prominent; the largest manufacturer of cotton in the South, he was also owner of extensive oilmills at Vicksburg, Miss., and was head of the firm of Richardson & May, New Orleans, the largest cotton com- inission house in the United States. Of his minor enterprises, such as his insurance busi- ness and his many stores in various places, there is not space here to speak in detail. As a capitalist he took first rank in the South. His great wealth, aggregating several millions, was accumulated in legitimate industry, and has never been used to crush feeble competitors. Communities have been made richer and thousands happier by his enterprise; in his mills alone, at Wesson, two thousand operatives and laborers find employment; nearly all of them have been drawn from the country in the vicinity of the mills, and by a liberal system of recompense and encouragement have been transformed into well-dressed, happy, self-sup- porting workers. With his careful attention to his own interests, Colonel Richardson com- bined much public spirit. His purchase of the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific railroad required the expenditure of a large sum, kept the control of the road at home, and insured its completion. From its recent sale he derived a large profit. It is indicative of the nature and aspirations of the man and of the largeness of his operations, that while in the notes written out for a sketch of his life he enumerates with some pride the industrial honors conferred upon him, he omits all mention of his almost single-handed purchase of this rail- road. But in the biography of any prominent and successful man, the most interesting part after all is that which tells the story of his early life. His later career is known to many; it is, so to speak, public property; but the early influences that determined his course in life, first set his feet in the path of success, and shaped his career are generally less known, although of most importance because the lesson they teach can be applied by others for their own benefit. Colonel Richardson was born in Caswell county, N. C., six miles from Dan- ville, Va., then only a village, on June 28, 1818. His father, James Richardson, was a country merchant and planter, and died in 1826, leaving a widow and seven children. When about ten years of age Edmund Richardson was sent to what was then called an oldfield school. Even the limited opportunity for getting an education afforded him was diminished by the necessity he was under in assisting the field hands on his mother's farm on Satur- days, when other children of his age were either studying or enjoying their weekly holiday. That his efforts to secure an education did not cease with these four years of primitive school- ing, and that he must afterward have studied diligently in his brief hours of respite from hard work, is shown by letters written by him, which are clear, precise, well worded, and such as any well-educated man might write. When the boy was fourteen years old his mother obtained for him a situation in a store in Danville, at $30 a year and board. That mother must have been a woman of great force of character and energy; so anxious was she that her boy should be able to save his salary that she had his clothes spun and woven at home, besides furnishing him with scanty pocket money for candy and other boyish necessaries of existence, and for an occasional visit to some passing circus. "And how much," he asks " do you suppose I saved out of that salary of $30 a year ?" "Why, just $30."

Licherto

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In 1833, at the age of fifteen, he went to Brandon, Miss., where he took a position in a store at $40 per year. He held this position for two years and then continued for a working interest in the firm, and afterward at the settlement of his mother's estate, in 1840, the executor having turned over to young Edmund $2,800 in money and a few negroes, he added this money to his savings and bought out the firm and continued the business in his own name, establishing other mercantile houses in Canton and Jackson, Miss. From the day he obtained his situation in Brandon he was an ambitious student and was soon well up with the young men of his time and competent to keep the books and do the financiering for the firm. Nearly all the men who have risen to distinction in any walk of life liave always been eager to make known their obligation to a mother's influence; to these Colonel Richardson is no exception; in concluding his own account of his career he said: "I owe my great success to early lessons in economy received from my mother, and to the assistance of my partners in business." He is careful to give full credit to the latter, say- ing in another place: "I have been very fortunate in partners." In 1847, while in New York buying goods, he met Margaret E. Patton, of Huntsville, Ala., a sister of ex-Governor Robert Patton of that state, who was visiting in New York, and in May, 1848, he married her. From the hour of the solemn ceremony to the end of his life, Colonel Richardson's marriage was of the most satisfactory and happy nature. It was a union of two affec- tionate hearts, with kindred impulses, sympathy and lofty ambitions, encouraged by high moral purpose; it was characterized throughout by the most gentle consideration and loving kindness, each to the other and both alike. It was a life-long honeymoon, that scattered sunshine over the lives of many and made their cares lighter and lives brighter by coming in touch with its warmth and gentleness. For more than a third of a century this sacred union continued, the advancing years adding to the honor and peace of the preceding ones. The tie was interrupted only by death. On January 11, 1886, Colonel Richardson was stricken with apoplexy and died in a few minutes. Mrs. Richardson was completely broken by her sad loss and on December 9th of the following year she followed her beloved husband to that mysterious realm of which we know only the brightness of a beautiful promise. From their marriage there were seven children, two of whom died: James S., William P., John P., Charles P. and Susie P., now the wife of William W. Gordon, of New Orleans, being the survivors of the family, James S. the eldest son being at the present time the head of the estates; interesting and instructive histories of whom will be found in the following pages. In 1850 Colonel Richardson went into business at Jackson with his brother and John W. Robinson as partners, and opened branch stores at Brandon, Canton, Morton and Newton. In 1852 he entered the cotton commission business in New Orleans, retaining his plantatation and country store interests until 1860, when he sold them. When the war broke out Colonel Richardson's house, Thornhill & Co., in New Orleans, sus- pended business, having acceptances out to the amount of $500,000; its assets amounted to between eight and nine hundred thousand dollars, but of course, most of these were lost. He had besides, some individual liabilities, and was working five plantations, most of them on the Mississippi river. The negroes on these were set free and the teams, stock and outfits, mostly lost or destroyed. The close of the war found Colonel Richardson seriously embarrassed financially and with his plantations in a dilapidated condition. As he himself said: "I would gladly have given up all I had to be free from debt;" but he felt that it was useless to remain inactive and nurse vain regrets. In the fall of 1865 he attempted to reorganize his places for planting, and with five hundred bales of cotton saved from the general wreck, reopened his commission house in New Orleans. He sold his plantations for PP

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good prices in cash, and his cotton enabled him to control his acceptances by paying half cash and extending the balance for twelve months. He then controlled the paper of his cus- tomers and went earnestly to work, collecting from some, compromising with others, settling in some way with all whose paper he held. In twelve months he was out of debt, and soon had capital in his business.

The traveling which Colonel Richardson did in these and the next succeeding years was marvelous; his activity was ceaseless; wherever his presence could be of service to his inter- ests or those of his firm he managed to be. The whole reestablishing of his fortune was an exhibition of energy and masterful appliance of the means at command, such as had scarcely ever before been witnessed, even under similar exceptional circumstances. Impossibilities were Colonel Richardson's opportunities, and what to most men would seem insurmountable obstacles Colonel Richardson leveled to his own convenience and order by the exercise of a courage, the remarkability of which was equaled only by its unswerving purpose .. At the breaking out of the war Colonel Richardson owned eight hundred slaves and many large plan- tations, a possession so great as to sound like a romance. For four years during the war this vast business was entirely suspended. After the dissolution of his partnership with Mr. Thornhill in 1867, on account of the ill health of that gentleman, Colonel Richardson began to look around for a partner; he did not know Mr. A. H. May personally, but had heard of his great business qualities, and he started out to find him. He went to New Orleans and met Mr. May in front of No. 40 Perdido, and introduced himself; after a very few minutes' talk the firm of Richardson & May was formed; they stepped inside the office, 40 Perdido, and asked for a sheet of paper, and the articles of copartnership were written and signed, and Colonel Richardson hurried to catch his train, he having agreed to do the country work while Mr. May was to conduct the office. As he left Mr. May he said, "rent that office," which was done, and they have remained in the same office ever since. The Mississippi state peniten- tiary was, directly after the war, a great burden on the state; there were many prisoners and no money. Colonel Richardson made a proposition to the military governor to lease the pen- itentiary from the State for three years for $18,000 per annum, and in 1868 he became the lessee, and inaugurated the system of making cotton with convict labor. In 1871 the civil governor induced him to keep it another year. In order to employ all the prisoners he purchased many fine cotton plantations and leased many others. During the war the levees protecting the alluvial land of Mississippi from overflow were broken, washed away and caved into the river. There was no hope of reclaiming those valuable lands except by protection from overflow. Southern securities were not then wanted by capitalists. Colonel Richard- son made a proposition to build these levees and take bonds for the work. The proposition was accepted, the levees built, and those magnificent lands reclaimed. He held these bonds until they were of good value, and it was always a source of pride to him to see the levee bonds, which had been such a drug, so eagerly sought after. A few years before his death the fifth district levee board of Mississippi decided to issue $200,000 of bonds. Colonel Rich- ardson was wired to; he was then in New York. His reply was prompt that he would take the whole issue at par, and he took them. In 1873 Colonel Richardson had a talk with an Eastern gentleman well posted in cotton spinning of the world, and especially that of the East. Colonel Richardson argued that the place for the cotton mills of this country was near the cotton fields. The Eastern man argued that that was an impossibility, as the quality of the white labor in the South was not intelligent enough. and such a thing would not be pos- sible in the South. Colonel Richardson decided to make the experiment, and built the Mis- sissippi mills at Wesson, Miss. There is no foreign labor in the mills except Mr. John Hop-

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kinson-Englishman-the superintendent, who has been with the mills since they were started, and to whom the great success of these mills is partly attributable. William Oliver, who was secretary and treasurer from the first, was a man of wonderful sagacity and energy. Mr. Oliver died in June of this year. Colonel Richardson was president of the World's Exposition in 1883. In 1879 the Northern Louisiana & Shreveport railroad was ordered foreclosed to pay the first bondholders, amounting to $1,250,000, and other cash liabilities amounting to about $400,000. Terms of sale, $60,000 cash to be deposited. Colonel Rich- ardson bought the road, paid off the $400,000 cash, and assured the payments of the bonds. He ran the road for nine months, and sold the same to the Erlanger syndicate. This was a big job, the road in the worst possible condition, ties all rotted aud rails worn and bent, and the roadbed in a dreadful state, requiring a great outlay of money to put it in shape so that it could be used.

Colonel Richardson was in partnership with Gen. N. B. Forrest in planting cotton on Prest island, near Memphis, from 1872 to General Forrest's death. He was also in partner- ship with Gen. Wade Hampton in planting cotton in Washington county, Miss. Iu addi- tion to his many other engagements he was partner in Commendum, in the well known big grocery house of Goodrich & Raily, from 1869 to 1872. There are many remarkable instances upon record of the marked philanthropic character of Colonel Richardson; records that establish his great humanity to man and sympathy to those in distress. These rec- ords are living examples of Colonel Richardson's grateful remembrance of the friends of his early life and struggles, and of his great generosity to those who served him. Through all the many incidents placed before the eye of the writer, as indeed Colonel Richardson's whole life has proven, there is the ennobling presence of that high, moral purpose and unswerving allegiance to truth, so characteristic in the lives of truly great men. There is not space in this history to enumerate half of his kind acts to his fellowmen, or to set forth the footprints of his wonderful progress. Therefore a few of the incidents ouly can be related. When Colonel Richardson was on his way from North Carolina to Clinton, Miss., his horse died just before he reached there. He looked about to find someone from whom he could obtain a horse, and found a Mr. Hobson, who was a North Carolinian, and he cheer- fully loaned him a horse to finish his journey. Mr. Hobson died shortly before Colonel Richardson's death, and one of the last acts of Colonel Richardson's life was to erect a monument over Mr. Hobson's grave, in remembrance of his kind act to him when he was a strange boy in a strange land. Among the bridal presents at the wedding of Colonel Rich- ardson there were three valuable slaves: Dick Richardson, Martha Douglass and Sallie Rother. Dick was the trusty coachman until he was too old to do service, and was then given a monthly allowance until his death. During the war the family was in the Federal lines, and Dick was the messenger between his master and his family, making regular trips and carrying much money and valuables back and forth. He could have had his freedom any time, but he preferred to serve his master, for whom his devotion was worship. Sallie was the cook from 1848 to 1870. Martha Rother was the black mammy, who raised all the children. These three negroes were with the family in and out of the Federal lines many times during the war, never desiring to change their happy condition; they remained in the service of the family until their death.

James S. Richardson. It is the knowledge of the circumstances that tend to the forma- tion of character, or the conditions which influence and direct the happiness of life, that con- stitute the advantage gained by the world from the publication of the lives of individuals; and the only objection which can possibly be raised against the time-honored custom of

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recording the lives of men while they live is that truth, in the hands of less painstaking biographers, is apt to be buried in panegyric. Under such circumstances there is an appear- ance of reason for the objection, and yet there are so many others against the objection that the balance is all on the side of truth and the usefulness and eminent propriety of memoirs. That we speak favorably of the subjects admitted in this history ought not to be considered a fault, as if we had nothing favorable to say of them they would not be admitted at all. It is not the design of history or the practice of historians or biographers to lavish praise indis- criminately, but rather to gather facts and state them fairly in a graceful manner; and such facts, published during the life of the subject, can with more certainty be relied on than such as may be gathered from his friends after death, when the maxim de mortuis nil nisi bonum, is most generally strictly observed. A virtuous life demands our reverence; public and pri- vate worth, our admiration; long and practical usefulness, our gratitude. It is the living presence of those elements that robs the task of the biographer of its melancholy and leaves it an agreeable duty to be performed for the instruction and guidance of the footsteps of those who follow after. Honor and fame are the legitimate reward of virtue and talent. Like wealth they may sometimes be unworthily bestowed and sometimes unworthily worn; but when yielded to merit or won by industry they adorn the wearer like a graceful robe, imparting dignity and commanding respect. Through the operation of the printing press and the careful writer they become the property of the present and the future, and appear as trophies to be won and worn by those who successfully contend against indolence and vice; and it is of rare occurrence in the history of any country that superior mental attainments, in alliance with moral worth, judiciously directed and actively employed, have failed in their attainment. An additional attestation of this universal truth will be found in this memoir.

Mr. J. S. Richardson, in many respects, is one of the most remarkable men in our his- tory. He was born in Huntsville, Ala., on the 22d day of February, 1849, and is the eldest child of the late Col. Edmund Richardson, who was the founder of the great cotton firm of Richardson & May, as well as the greatest cotton planter in the world. His mother was Margaret Elizabeth Patton, a sister of ex-Governor Patton, of Alabama. Mr. J. S. Richard- son's early education was obtained in the common schools at Brandon, Miss., where his father lived before the war, and at Huntsville, Ala., where he also spent part of his boyhood with his grandmother. During the war he had no opportunities for school. In 1863, when quite a boy, he was sent by his father into the Federal army to look after property belonging to his mother. He was arrested as a spy by General Granger and held a prisoner eight months at Huntsville, Ala., during which time he contracted the measles and had a relapse and came near dying. During General Granger's absence his adjutant took pity on the sick boy and released him and had him passed through the lines at Whitesburg. Being weak, without money or friends, and where no mail communications could reach his family, he had to walk nearly a hundred miles, when he borrowed an old mule and proceeded to where his father was refuging. Immediately after the war he was sent to Wilson's preparatory school in Alamance county, N. C., and he remained there a year, then entered the Virginia Military insti- tute at Lexington, and having a taste for business, he was anxious to embark for himself. He left the military institute after the second year and went to Memphis, Tenn., and bought the interest of E. E. Clark, in the large cotton firm of Clark, Ely & Co., the firm then con- tinuing under the name of Ely, Harney & Richardson.

In 1876 he bought his partners out and continued the business under the name of Rich- ardson & Co. The yellow fever of 1879 forced him to move his office from Memphis to St. Louis. While there he determined to close up the cotton business in Memphis. He bought

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an interest in the well-known large grocery business of C. M. & G. M. Flanagan, the firm then becoming Flanagan & Richardson. This business was continued under that name for three years. The business of his father was increasing so fast that he needed help. Mr. Richardson sold his interest to his partners in 1881 and went Sonth to assist his father, who was a firm believer in the gradual enhancement of values of good cotton lands, and Mr. James S. Richardson commenced in 1875 to follow out his father's idea-bought some cotton plantations and has continued ever since to enlarge his planting interest. When Colonel Richardson died, in 1886, he left no will, and the brothers and sisters of Mr. Richardson immediately issued powers of attorney and Mr. Richardson was put in the entire charge of the large estate of his father, which amounted to many millions. In the meantime Mr. Richardson's mother died, and afterward, when everything was in snug shape and ready for division, a meeting of all the heirs was called and the entire estate was divided pleasantly and to the entire satisfaction of all concerned, Mr. Richardson having caused large additions to his father's accumulations. The planting property of Mr. Richardson, inherited in addi- tion to what he previously owned, makes him the largest cotton planter in the world, he hav- ing in all forty thousand acres of the fine alluvial cotton land, of which twenty thousand acres are in cultivation this year. The cotton firm of Richardson & May continues, and the Richardsons still own their father's stock in the Refuge Cotton oilmill at Wesson, which institution is now working over two thousand operatives. Probably one of the most remark- able incidents in Mr. Richardson's life was in 1871, during the yellow fever epidemic, while on a steamboat going up to his father's plantation he was taken sick with this fever. The crew and passengers became panicstricken with fright, and in the rain and wintry weather of November he was put ashore. The only house near was an old dilapidated one without chimneys, floor, doors or windows. He was placed in this house until friends came to his rescue, and in a short time, with the use of cloths, the openings were closed and a clapboard floor put in and straw and mud chimneys hurriedly built. The physician pronounced his recovery impossible, but his strong constitution pulled him through. One of the great attests of public faith and honor in the social organization of New Orleans, than which there is not a finer code in its usefulness and worthiness in the world, the annual election of the king of the carnival is the most distinguished. The selection of this personage is made solely upon personal popularity and worthiness; and it calls for an exhibition of great dig- nity, broad and liberal hospitality, and a distinguished personal appearance. There are no set rules for the ethics of the king upon this day, simply a prepared programme of his grand disembarkation from the steamer that has conveyed the royal host and party up the Mississippi river to the city, and the reception by the municipal authorities, and their escort of the king and his party to the city hall, where the keys of the city are turned over to Rex; the interpretation of the proper address of a king, his royal manner and dignity, before the eyes of a hundred thousand people is an ordeal of no common nature. More particularly is this true when the character is assumed by one of such pronounced American spirit as Mr. Richardson. In 1891 Mr. Richardson was elected to this distinguished social honor, and it is a matter of record, that while being full-charged with the spirit of democracy and liberty, Mr. Richardson possesses the high attainments requisite to the assumption of kingly favor and dignity. In personal appearance Mr. Richardson is six feet high and weighs about two hundred and thirty pounds. He has a compact figure and quick, decisive movement. His eyes are nearly as black as his father's and have the same searching, yet kindly, sympathetic, expression. He is the soul of considerate kindness, and is accessible to rich and poor alike. Among his happiest accomplishments is the one, which is truly a family trait, of placing strangers entirely at their ease.

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Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 104

Author: Goodspeed Brothers Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314