Location: Elm Street at Washington Street in Greensboro
County: Guilford
Original Date Cast: 2009
Lunsford Richardson, born in 1854 in Johnston County, was educated at the Horner and Graves Academy in Oxford and enrolled at Davidson College in 1872. His mother, who had raised Lunsford and his four siblings alone, died the following year, leaving Richardson with enough money for only three years at Davidson. Richardson graduated from Davidson in 1875—number two in his class and with medals in Greek, Latin, and debating. He served four years as a principal in Cumberland County, but left school to become a pharmacist—one of the only other jobs that he felt would be served by his Latin skills.
In 1880 Richardson purchased the only drugstore in Selma. Ten years later he moved to Greensboro, where he and partner John B. Fariss purchased W. C. Porter’s drug store. At Richardson-Fariss Drug Store, he began to utilize his lifelong interest in chemistry, inventing a variety of over-the-counter medications. In order to promote his medicines, Richardson sold the drugstore and established a wholesale business, the L. Richardson Drug Company. In 1905, after disagreements with stockholders over how the operation should be run, Richardson sold the business, retaining rights to his twenty-one medicines, and opened the Vick Family Remedies Company.
Vicks Salve, developed by Richardson in 1894, offered promise, but was difficult to market with such a nondescript name. Richardson’s eldest son, H. Smith Richardson, joined the family business as sales manager in 1907 and recognized the need for a more descriptive name. With the honed salesmanship of Smith Richardson and under the catchy name Vick’s VapoRub, the cold remedy had garnered a national following within five years. The flu pandemic of 1918 to 1919 made Vick’s VapoRub an indispensible part of medicine chests. With operations focused on VapoRub, Richardson incorporated his business in early 1919.
Ironically, Lunsford Richardson did not live to see his creation become a worldwide phenomenon, succumbing to the flu in August of that year. Richardson married Mary Lynn Smith, sister of his college classmate Henry Louis Smith. They had five children. Active in the Presbyterian Church and his community, Richardson was a champion of race relations. He was a trustee at Palmer Memorial Institute. He is buried in Greensboro’s Green Hill Cemetery. During World War II, a Liberty Ship was named Lunsford Richardson in his honor.
References:
H. Smith Richardson, Early History of Richardson-Merrell (1975)
W. C. Burton, H. Smith Richardson (1979)
Mary Beaty, History of Davidson College (1988)
William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of NC Biography, V, 215-216—sketch by Norris Preyer
Billy Arthur, “Breathing Easier,” Our State (January 1997)