Recollections of Major A.D. Reynolds

File

Identifier: EA-2018-001

Staff Only

Content Description

In 1916, using a partially used company ledger book, A.D. Reynolds set out to record his memoir in a series of sketches, anecdotes, and recorded memories. These sketches were written over an eight year period, between 1916 and 1924. Reynolds documents growing up on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, his role in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, and his life as a tobacco manufacturer. The recollections themselves document the period between 1862 and 1924. Included among the sketches are Reynolds's observations of his father, Hardin William Reynolds, and his more successful younger brother, R.J. Reynolds, founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

Dates

1916 - 1924

Biographical Note

A.D. (Abram David) Reynolds (1847-1925) was born on Rock Spring Plantation located near Critz, Virginia. His father, Hardin William Reynolds (1810-1882), was a successful tobacco manufacturer and merchant. Educated at Virginia Military Institute and Bryant and Stratton Commercial College in Baltimore, A.D. Reynolds went to work at an early age in his father’s tobacco factory before joining the Confederate Army where he achieved the rank of Major. After the Civil War, Reynolds became a wealthy tobacco manufacturer in Bristol, Tennessee. Meanwhile, his younger brother R.J. Reynolds (1850-1918) became a successful tobacco baron in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, founding the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. In later years, A.D. Reynolds’s tobacco companies became increasingly less successful, and he exited the tobacco trade around 1897. Three of A.D. Reynolds’s sons, Abram David Jr. (1879-1936), Richard Samuel (1881-1955), and Clarence Kelly (1890-1963), founded the U.S. Foil Company, which is now Reynolds Metals in Richmond, Virginia.

Extent

1 Volumes

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Provenance

This volume is part of papers collected by Nancy Susan Reynolds (1910-1985), younger daughter of R.J. and Katharine Reynolds. Exact acquisition information is unknown.