Finding Aid of R. P. Richardson Jr. and Company Books and Ledgers, 1898-1927, PC.2036

[Identification of item], PC.2036, R. P. Richardson Jr. and Company Books and Ledgers, 1898-1927, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, N.C., USA.

Consists of 22 volumes, representing a portion of the business records of the R.P. Richardson, Jr. and Co., founded in 1877 for the manufacture of smoking tobacco, Reidsville. Volumes include 14 letter press books, 1911-1917; 5 ledger books, 1898-1910; and 3 check stub books, November 1917-August 1918. Additionally, there is one folder with the collection containing a blank invoice, circa 1920, that features the logo of the Old North State Smoking Tobacco, a brand manufactured by the Richardson Company.

Arranged by type of business record and chronological therein.

A native of Rockingham County, Robert Payne Richardson, Jr. was born in 1855 to Robert Payne Richardson and his second wife, Mary Elizabeth Watlington, a native of Caswell County. Growing up on the family plantation at Wright's Crossroads, Richardson studied at local schools in Reidsville and Wentworth, and attended the Bingham School, Orange County in 1872. The following year, he associated with his father's tobacco and mercantile business, and began clerking and selling tobacco.In 1874, a Virginian, Frank Reid Penn moved his family to Reidsville and formed a business partnership with his brother Sarn Cabell. Named the F. R. Penn Tobacco Company, the firm began to manufacture both chewing and smoking tobacco. (See the Chronology for more information about this company and its purchase by American Tobacco Company in 1911, and the subsequent restructuring of American Tobacco following antitrust litigation, 1907-1911; and its eventual building of a plant in Reidsville, 1917).In 1877 Robert Payne Richardson Jr., then twenty-two years of age, founded his own business, the R. P. Richardson Jr. and Company. Other than the F. R. Penn Company, the tobacco industry in Reidsville had primarily produced chewing tobacco. Early on, Richardson chose to focus production on smoking tobacco. Under the brand name, Old North State, it rapidly became a leading regional brand. At some point therafter, the company began making cigarettes, also under the same brand name. Early success stimulated other several area producers to follow suite, so that by the turn of the century Reidsville was second only to Durham in its smoking tobacco output.Also during 1877, Richardson was married to Ann Bettie Watt. She bore one son, Pinckney Watt (1881-1958), before her death on 30 August 1882. In 1892 Richardson married Margaret M. Watt (Maggie), who bore three children, Robert Payne III (1897-1967); Margaret Elizabeth; and Sarah Dillard, who died in childhood. Among his children, Pinckney Watt and Robert Payne III, worked in the family business. Sometime around 1890 Richardson had built a modern, five story brick factory located in Reidsville, a town whose Market Street was divided by the Southern Railroad.

The business thrived over two decades in the tobacco-centric town of Reidsville. However, the year 1917 brought challenges with a factory fire and the building nearby of a large American Tobacco Company plant for the production of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Following the fire the factory was partially rebuilt. Richardson's younger son, Robert Payne III, was graduated from Davidson College in 1918, then served one year in the U.S. Marine Corps. Thereafter he returned to Reidsville and joined his father in the tobacco business. The elder Richardson, who died in 1922, was followed in death in 1924 by by his wife Maggie. The family tobacco manufacturing business continued until 1926-1927, following its purchase by Brown and Williamson of Winston-Salem in April 1926.In addition to its smoking tobacco enterprise, the Richardson family of Reidsville, Rockingham County was involved in the acquisition of thirty-three thousand acres in Tennessee; gold mining in Montgomery County with the Rich-Cog mine and Rockingham Mining and Investment Company; and farming of a large scale within their home county.Sources: , s.v. Penn, Charles Ashby; Richardson, Robert Payne, Jr.; , ed. William S. Powell, pp. 150; 1120-1121. .

1. R. P. Richardson Jr. and Company Books and Ledgers,1898-1927

Richardson family.

R. P. Richardson, Jr., and Co.

Cigarette industry--North Carolina--Reidsville.

Old North State Smoking Tobacco.

Tobacco industry--North Carolina--Reidsville.

Tobacco industry--North Carolina--Rockingham County.

Tobacco industry

Cigarette industry

Reidsville (N.C.).

Rockingham County (N.C.)

Reidsville

Richardson, Robert Payne, Jr.

Richardson, Robert Payne, III.

Received December 2011 as a gift from David Chiswell, Raleigh, N.C.

Processed by Fran Tracy-Walls, 2012

Encoded by Fran Tracy-Walls, 2012; revised and updated, August 2019, for publication in Discover Online Catalog (DOC).