Edmund Richardson

Edmund Richardson
Edmund Richardson "Cotton King" (1818 – 1886)

Edmund Richardson (June 28, 1818 − January 11, 1886) was an American entrepreneur who acquired great wealth during the mid-19th century by producing and marketing cotton in the states of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. At the time of his death, he was described as the richest man in the South.

Edmund Richardson was born June 28, 1818, in Caswell County, North Carolina, to James Richardson and Nancy Payne Ware. He was educated in common schools from the age of 10 to 14 but left school in 1832 and clerked in a dry goods store in Danville, Virginia. In 1840, he inherited $2,800 and a few slaves from his father's estate.

By his early 20s, Richardson had settled in Jackson, Mississippi, where he formed a mercantile partnership with branch stores in neighboring communities. In 1848, Richardson married Margaret Elizabeth Patton of Huntsville, Alabama, with whom he had seven children.

When the American Civil War began in 1861, Richardson owned five cotton plantations, as well as country stores in the towns of Brandon, Canton, Jackson, Morton, and Newton, Mississippi. In addition, he was a partner in Thornhill and Company, a New Orleans, cotton factoring firm. They were in the business of judging the quality of cotton, keeping abreast of cotton crop production, and analyzing cotton price trends.