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James William Richardson, Sr.

The Richardson Household
James William Richardson
James Richardson, Jr.
2827 Locust Street

Richardson & Company – Wholesale Druggists

Among the great commercial and civic households represented within the Lucas and Garrison neighborhood in 1875, few possessed the breadth of influence, institutional reach, and multi-generational significance of the Richardson family. The residence at 2827 Locust Street stood not merely as the home of a prosperous merchant, but as the center of a family deeply connected to the commercial, educational, and cultural development of nineteenth-century St. Louis.

The head of the household was James William Richardson, founder of Richardson Drug Company, one of the largest and most respected wholesale pharmaceutical firms in the American West. By 1875 Richardson had become widely recognized not only as a successful businessman, but as one of the civic-minded merchant leaders who helped shape modern St. Louis during the decades following the Civil War.

Born in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, on July 14, 1817, Richardson emerged from modest New England beginnings rooted in discipline, education, and industrious labor. Contemporary biographical accounts described him teaching school during the winter months while working manual labor during the summers in order to support himself and assist his family. After years in the grocery business in Pittsburgh, Richardson arrived in St. Louis in 1857 and invested approximately fifty thousand dollars into the wholesale drug trade—an enormous sum for the era and a decision that would lay the foundation for one of the city’s most influential mercantile enterprises.

The timing proved remarkable. St. Louis was rapidly emerging as the commercial gateway of the Mississippi Valley, and the wholesale pharmaceutical trade was becoming increasingly important as railroads, western settlement, medicine, manufacturing, and commercial agriculture expanded across the nation. Richardson recognized the opportunity immediately.

Beginning at 704 North Main Street, the Richardson firm expanded steadily into immense warehouse and laboratory facilities near the levee district. Contemporary accounts described the company as “the oldest drug house in the city,” possessing “world-wide” reputation and distributing pharmaceuticals and druggists’ supplies throughout the western United States. By the late nineteenth century the company occupied multiple warehouse buildings, employed well over one hundred fifty workers, maintained chemical and pharmaceutical laboratories, and operated one of the largest wholesale drug operations west of the Mississippi River.

Richardson Wholesale Drug Catalog

The scale of the enterprise reflected the growing national importance of St. Louis itself. River transportation, rail distribution, warehousing, importation, and industrial processing all converged within the Richardson business model. Their warehouses stood among the great commercial houses that transformed St. Louis from a frontier river town into a modern industrial metropolis.

Yet James William Richardson’s importance extended far beyond commerce.

He became deeply involved in the civic and educational life of St. Louis during a period when the city’s public institutions were rapidly evolving. Histories of the era repeatedly praised his integrity, public spirit, and commitment to educational reform. Richardson served on the Board of Education and became closely associated with the establishment and expansion of the St. Louis Public School Library system. One contemporary history stated that no individual had worked more tirelessly in advancing educational opportunities within the city.

The same source observed:

“In the conception and execution of public enterprises that affect the welfare of St. Louis, no more liberal or ardent worker has been found.”

Richardson also became associated with the broader cultural refinement emerging within Gilded Age St. Louis. As commercial fortunes expanded following the Civil War, many of the city’s leading merchant families increasingly supported educational institutions, libraries, museums, music organizations, and civic reform movements intended to elevate the intellectual and cultural standing of the city. The Richardson household participated fully within this evolving world of upper-class civic responsibility and cultural ambition.

James William Richardson, Jr.

Living within the household in 1875 was Richardson’s son, James Richardson Jr., then only about twenty years old and already employed as a clerk within the family firm. Gould’s Directory specifically identifies “James, jr.” as residing at 2827 Locust while working for Richardson & Company, indicating that he remained part of the parental household during the period represented by Plate 71.

Nearby, at 2811 Locust Street, a brother, Joseph Clifford Richardson, who had already entered the business as a junior partner. Educated at Washington University in St. Louis, Joseph represented the next generation of increasingly professionalized business leadership emerging during the late nineteenth century. Together, the Richardson residences formed a concentrated family presence within the Lucas and Garrison district, illustrating how many of St. Louis’ leading merchant dynasties clustered within a relatively compact social geography.

Florence Wymon Richardson

The younger generation of the Richardson family would eventually extend the household’s influence into unexpected directions. James Richardson, Jr. later married Florence Wyman Richardson, daughter of Postmaster Frank Wyman. Florence Richardson became an important figure within the cultural and civic life of St. Louis, participating in music organizations, women’s reform movements, and broader cultural initiatives associated with the city’s growing artistic institutions.

Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Hemingway

Through their daughter, Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, the Richardson family would later become permanently connected to twentieth-century American literature when she married Ernest Hemingway, creating an unlikely bridge between nineteenth-century St. Louis mercantile society and one of the most influential literary figures of the modern era.

The Ernest Hemingways

 

September 3, 1921: Ernest Hemingway, 21, marries Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, 28, in Bay Township, Michigan. Living in Paris, the couple's marriage was happy until Ernest entered an affair with Hadley's best friend, Pauline Pfeiffer. In Europe, it was common for artists to have a wife and mistress (Pound, Picasso, Ford Madox Ford, and others enjoyed them), so Ernest, embracing that lifestyle, wanted to have his cake, etc.  Other wives understood the situation (they probably were happy to have their idiot husbands out of the house for a few nights). Hadley went a different way; she divorced Ernest in January 1927 after a trial separation—Hadley didn't sit around moping; since Ernest was having an affair her friend, she moved on with his friends! 

Ernest married Pauline, whose family had mountains of money and moved to a beautiful house that her Uncle Gus bought for them in Key West, Florida. They spent loads of Pfeiffer cash having fun, had two kids, drank, and fought like wildcats until divorcing a decade-plus later. Hadley and son, John, also returned to America, where she met a nice guy and enjoyed a happy life. It seems Hemingway realized pretty quickly that leaving Hadley was a massive mistake. He wrote her long, loving letters for several years after their split until Hadley's new husband told him that the correspondence upset her and to kindly stop. Reading Ernest's Paris memoir, "A Moveable Feast," it is clear that he never truly got over Hadley and knew he was a cad for scuttling their marriage.  

Hemingway turned over all royalties from "The Sun Also Rises" to Hadley for her and their son's care as a divorce settlement. I've never heard an exact sum, but those royalties over the decades must have been hundreds of thousands if not more. She did okay.
Pop-Up Rabbit Trail - The Ernest Hemingways

Yet the Richardson story, like many great Gilded Age family narratives, ultimately carried elements of both triumph and tragedy.

Although James William Richardson represented the disciplined and institution-minded builder generation of nineteenth-century St. Louis, the following generation faced different pressures. In 1905, after suffering severe financial losses connected to speculative wheat investments, James Richardson, Jr. died by suicide at the family residence on Cabanne Avenue. Contemporary newspapers attributed the tragedy to financial collapse and emotional despair, shocking St. Louis society because of the prominence and longstanding reputation of the Richardson family.

The contrast between the steady, carefully constructed success of the founding generation and the eventual collapse experienced by the heir to the enterprise reveals some of the hidden strains that accompanied wealth, expectation, and social prominence during the Gilded Age.

The Richardson household therefore embodies many of the larger themes present throughout the Lucas and Garrison project itself: western commercial expansion, civic institution building, educational reform, industrial growth, cultural ambition, family legacy, social expectation, and the deeply human realities that often existed beneath the polished surface of nineteenth-century success.

From wholesale pharmaceutical warehouses along the riverfront to educational reform, public libraries, cultural leadership, and eventual literary connections reaching into the twentieth century, the Richardson family helped shape both the commercial and intellectual character of St. Louis during one of the city’s most transformative eras.