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Zachary Smith Reynolds (November 5, 1911 - July 6, 1932) was an American amateur aviator and youngest son of American businessman and millionaire R. J. Reynolds. The son of one of the richest men in the United States at the time, Reynolds was to inherit twenty-million dollars when he turned twenty-eight, as established in his father's will.

In the early morning of July 6, 1932, Reynolds died under mysterious circumstances of a gunshot wound to the head, following a party on the family estate of the Reynolda House. A series of investigations revealed inconsistent testimony from the party-goers and signs of tampering with the crime scene. The death gained sensational national media coverage after Reynolds's wife of a few months, Broadway singer and actress Libby Holman, along with Reynolds's friend Albert "Ab" Walker, were indicted of first-degree murder charges by a grand jury. However, the case was eventually dropped, due to lack of evidence, and at the request of the Reynolds family. It remains unsolved to this day. Based on the evidence and testimonies, it is unknown if it was a murder or suicide. Multiple films were inspired by the case, including the 1950s classic Written on the Wind.

Reynolds's siblings donated their shares of his estate to form the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation for the benefit of social causes in North Carolina.

Early life

Reynolds (also known as Z. Smith Reynolds, or just Smith) was the youngest child of R. J. Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and Mary Katharine "Katharine" Smith Reynolds. At the time of Smith's birth in 1911, R. J. Reynolds was the wealthiest man in the state of North Carolina, and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company was producing one-fourth of all United States plug chewing tobacco. The introduction of the Camel cigarettes' brand two years later in 1913 spiked the company's profits. In the first year of production, 425 Camel cigarettes were sold, becoming the most popular brand in the United States by 1918.

Reynolda Estate

The couple and their four children first lived in a Queen Anne-style Victorian mansion at 666 West Fifth street in Winston-Salem. The house was located on a street known as "Millionaire's Row," along with other wealthy Reynolds family members and important Reynolds Tobacco employees. While living at the mansion, Katharine began to design a country estate, the future Reynolda House. Agriculture and country living was very stylish among the American wealthy at the time; Katharine herself was subscribed to fashionable publications such as Town and Country, Women’s Home Companion, and Country Life in America.

The 1,067 acre estate would be completed in winter of 1917. The centerpiece of the country home was a 64-room mansion, described modestly as a "bungalow" by R.J. and Katharine. The house was four stories and divided into a central section with two wings, each attached to the main house at a 20 degree angle. The design and construction of the house took a total of 5 years: the house’s layout and utilities became complex to meet the needs of the family. The final plan included two kitchens, three dumbwaiters, an elevator, fourteen bathrooms, a telephone in each room, and an Aeolian Company pipe organ featuring four keyboards and a pedal footboard. The rugs, curtains, and other furnishings were designed and placed to absorb its harsh tones and create a warmer sound. The relatively simple exterior of the "bungalow" betrayed the luxurious interior: the main rooms - central living room, reception hall, and dining room - were decorated with detailed paneling, carved moldings, and rosettes, including Corinthian, Doric, and Ionic columns, and each public room had a carved-marble fireplace mantel.

The main house was complemented by formal gardens, vineyards, a golf course, two tennis courts, an outdoor swimming pool, and a man-made lake with a boathouse, called "Lake Katharine." Lake Katharine was created by damming the nearby Silas Creek. The lake’s depth was regulated by a spillway that led into an artificial pool with a concrete bottom. Occasionally the pond would be emptied for cleaning by sweeping out the bottom and sides. Reynolda functioned as a self-sufficient estate and also featured the adjoining "Reynolda Village" for workers. It had its own post office, housing for employees, two churches, two schools, and a model farm to exhibit and innovate the latest practices in agriculture, livestock production, and horticulture. The building of the estate coincided with the growing wealth of the Reynolds family: the RJ Reynolds company experienced a sharp increase in profit after the introduction of the Camel cigarette brand. Net profits in 1912 were 2.9 million, and would jump to 23.8 million by 1924. In 1922, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company’s net earnings were the highest ever taken in by a tobacco manufacturer in history.

1918-1924

The family permanently moved into Reynolda in December 1917. However, R.J. Reynolds had been experiencing illness due to pancreatic cancer earlier in the year. Treatments including quarantine and pulling all his teeth were unsuccessful. By early 1918, RJ was increasingly in pain and bedridden. He traveled between Winston-Salem and a Philadelphia hospital for treatments for his pancreatic cancer. After a major surgery, he was brought back to Reynolda and died July 29, 1918. R.J. had written a will beforehand that left each of his four children a trust that was limited to them until they turned twenty-eight.

Since its opening, the three youngest children attended the school built for the estate. A year after RJ’s death, Katharine soon began courting the headmaster who was hired in 1919, John Edward Johnston, a man about 20 years her junior. On June 11 1921, Katharine and Ed Johnston married in the Reynolda house living room. After their honeymoon abroad in London and Paris, the couple moved to a smaller cabin on the estate, leaving the children in the main bungalow with their governess and other retainers. Against doctor’s recommendations, at 44, Katharine became pregnant in early 1924. The pregnancy was difficult, and the couple moved into their New York City apartment to have better access to doctors. On May 21, she gave birth to J. Edward Johnston Jr.; however, three days later, she died from complications of the birth when a blood clot traveled to her brain and triggered an embolism.

After Katharine’s death, the responsibility of the children's care fell to Johnston and their uncle William Neal Reynolds. That summer, they sent the children on a summer tour of Europe and South America that had been previously planned by Katharine. Upon returning in the fall, they were each sent to their respective boarding schools, Smith Reynolds going to Woodberry Forest where his older brother R. J. Reynolds, Jr. "Dick" had previously attended.

Education

Reynolds spent two years at Woodberry Forest dabbling in various clubs, including the Smokers Club, where he was known as “Camel” Reynolds. While at Woodberry, he wrote at least two suicide notes: the notes would be taken out from his papers after his death and shown during the inquest into his death. One note was written as a last will and reads: "LAST WILL. I will my car to Ab , if he finishes it. My money to Dick. My reputation to Virginia. My good looks to Mary (she needs it.) P.S. You think I am tite , but I’m not. P.S. Hope you don’t feel hurt about this will." The second was written in a scribble on the back of a statement from Finchley, Clothes & Haberdashery, dated June 1927: "My girl has turned me down. Good-bye forever. Give my love to Mary, Virginia, Nancy, Dick, etc. Good-bye cruel world — Smith."

His brother Dick dropped out of North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering after two semesters to move to New York. By this time Smith Reynolds had switched schools to Culver Military Academy; following lack of success, he followed his brother's lead, dropping out at fifteen to join him and work for the newly founded Reynolds Aviation.

Aviation

Reynolds was an avid aviator like his older brother. The duo would practice takeoffs and landings on the ¾ mile front lawn of the Reynolda bungalow, and perform tricks in the air to terrify their sisters. After the success of Charles Lindbergh’s historic transatlantic flight in 1927, Dick Reynolds took on aviation as a business venture, buying the historic Roosevelt Field and founding airlines Reynolds Aviation and Camel City Flying Service.

Smith Reynolds developed his passion after dropping out of school to work for Reynolds Aviation. He earned a pilot’s license at 16, attested to by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, and personally signed by Orville Wright. He soon became the youngest person in the country to hold a transport pilot’s license. By then, Reynolds was a sort of local hero within Winston-Salem, and one of the state’s most notable aviators at the time.

Reynolds’ biggest achievement in aviation was the longest point-to-point solo circumnavigation at the time, at 17,000 miles over land, lasting from December 1931 to April 1932. The journey began in London and ended in Hong Kong; in between, flying over territories including the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Syrian Desert, and India. Reynolds began preparing for the trip in spring of 1931, buying a Savoia-Marchetti S.56 biplane, built by American Aeronautical Corporation in Port Washington, New York. The aircraft was specially customized to have a single seat and extra fuel capacity for 1,000 miles cruising range. After purchasing the plane, Reynolds met with a childhood friend, Robert “Slick” Shepherd, a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal. Reynolds and Shepherd created a business arrangement in which Shepard would ghostwrite the story of the flight around the world and syndicate it through a national press agency. Reynolds requested that it be made to sound exciting and unforgettable, in the spirit of other famous aviation exploits of the day. In return, Shepherd would receive half of the selling price for the story. The journey was delayed by several false starts due to negotiations for flying permits, multiple bouts of illness, and mechanical troubles. Reynolds kept a handwritten flight log, “Log of Aeroplane NR-898W,” documenting his impressions and flight data during the journey, to be referenced for future publication by Shepherd. The log reveals the challenging and often dangerous nature of the trip. The plane went through near constant mechanical problems, leading to numerous forced landings. Reynolds had to fix his own equipment, usually completely alone and in a remote area; he records becoming nearly stranded multiple times. Flying over poorly charted land, he often navigated only by following railroads, rivers, coastlines, or landmarks seen on a road map.

The flight was not recorded in aviation history. Reynolds was unable to complete the last 270 miles of the route by plane: When flying between Haiphong to Chanchiang, China, the plane almost ditched. Reynolds was forced to lighten the load by throwing supplies overboard in order to take off again. Landing in Chanchiang revealed engine damage that would prevent the plane from operating without extensive repairs; as such, Reynolds made it to Hong Kong by catching a ride on an oil ship. Dejected, he then cancelled the planned publication of the journey, abandoning the flight log and rescinding the previous offer to Slick Shepherd. Upon returning to the United States, Reynolds settled with his new wife at Reynolda for the remaining summer. He enrolled in NYU’s aeronautical engineering program for the fall of 1932, and hired on a NYU graduate student to tutor him in mathematics in the meantime. Reynolds would die before ever entering into the program.

After Reynolds’ death, his sister Nancy Susan Reynolds had the flight log privately published to honor his memory. The 31 original copies were distributed among family and friends. The pages of the original log have been scanned and digitized for the Southwest Virginia Digital Archive of Virginia Tech.

Reynolds's S.56C aircraft is on display at the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. The aircraft is on long-term loan from the Reynolda House in Winston-Salem.

Personal life

In summer 1929, Reynolds began courting Anne Ludlow Cannon of Concord, North Carolina, an heiress of the Cannon Mills textile fortune. He would fly to Concord in order to take her on rides in his plane. Anne’s father Joe Cannon insisted the couple be married and, one night in November 1929, with all three were drunk, had the teenagers and himself chauffeured to York, South Carolina, arriving past midnight, to be married in a shotgun wedding. The marriage seemed happy for about a month. However, it quickly deteriorated; at the annual Christmas party in the Winston-Salem Robert E. Lee hotel, Reynolds and Anne got into a fight. After the party, the pair returned to their apartment to host a dinner, still incensed. In front of Reynolds’s friends, they shouted profanities at each other; Smith hit Anne a few times, quieting her, before sending her to bed. Afterwards, he sat at an open window and sullenly threw dinner plates out to the streetcar tracks nine stories down. By early 1930, despite Anne being pregnant, the pair had effectively separated. In August 1930, Anne Cannon gave birth to their daughter, Anne Cannon Reynolds.

About a month into the marriage with Anne, Reynolds’s friend Dwight Deere Wiman, heir to the John Deere tractor fortune, came to Winston-Salem to visit. Wiman was the producer of the current Broadway hit, The Little Show. In April 1930, Reynolds went to see Wiman’s touring company of The Little Show in Baltimore. Sitting in the front row, he was dazzled by Broadway star Libby Holman and her performance, including her signature song Moanin' Low. After being introduced, Reynolds followed up with flowers and notes. Libby would spend the 1929 summer in Florida with her friends; he followed her down in his plane, becoming part of her entourage.

Libby Holman

Smith continued to follow Libby in his plane, behaving increasingly erratically: in summer of 1930, he rented a cottage nearby Louisa Carpenter’s house, with whom Libby was staying. When the pair sailed to Europe, he had private detectives find where they were staying in Paris, and appeared on their doorstep. After following her back to the US, they quarreled often as he repeatedly implored her to quit her career to marry him. They would descend into fights in front of Libby's friends at the Harlem speakeasies they liked to frequent. After one catastrophic row, how flew west and passed the remaining summer in California and Colorado, though still continued to call Libby regularly on the telephone. Once, he landed in Denver, checked into the Brown Palace Hotel, and called Libby’s apartment drunk. Over the call, he told Libby that if she didn’t promise to marry him, he would kill himself. Libby managed to talk him down and get him to hang up and sleep on it. Furious, she then took a taxi to Clifton Webbs’ house to rant, telling his mother Maybelle that she’d “put herself on the spot for that damn fool kid.”

Libby Holman went on to star in the smash-hit Broadway revue Three's a Crowd. Describing her career at this point, a journalist said: “Her name was the toast of Broadway. In The Little Show she had been a hit. In this new venture, a million hits in one.” Reynolds joined her in New York as the show cycled through over 200 performances; he saw almost every performance, sitting in the front row. Although they began dating and were identified as a couple, they continued to quarrel often. Libby’s friends disliked Smith’s brooding attitude but tolerated him as he paid for visits to nightclubs, speakeasies, and mixings with the elite of New York society.

In June 1931, Smith rented a home nearby Libby’s residence in Sands Point, Long Island. Neighbors of her cottage were scandalized at the behavior of Libby and her entourage. They often threw raucous parties and went about mostly nude. While they continued to see each other, tension arose as Libby continued her longtime relationship with Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter, a DuPont heiress. The pair, along with Libby’s sister, Tallulah Bankhead, and her sister Eugenie Bankhead, left Reynolds behind and sailed the Long Island sound for a week on Louisa’s father’s yacht. After their return Reynolds and Libby were able to spend time together, but continuously fought, leading to erratic results. Once, he’d come across Libby and Louisa together on the couch at her cottage, and immediately turned on his heel and slammed the door. He sped off in his Rolls Royce roadster towards the ocean, driving it off a four-foot retaining wall before crashing it into the ocean. He managed to fight to the surface and swim to his yacht anchored half a mile away, and sulked on it for two days without contacting Libby or any of her set. Neighbors of Libby’s cottage became increasingly upset at the shenanigans taking place around Libby. In another incident, a loud shot rang out from Libby’s cottage, followed by arguing shouts. A group of neighbors creeped up to the window to peer in after everything quieted down: instead of a chaotic scene, they only witnessed Libby reading a book, and Smith with his head in her lap.

Flight instructor Peter Bonelli later remembered an episode in which Reynolds expressed suicidal inclination. Libby, but not Smith, had been invited to a party hosted by Beatrice Lillie; upon learning he was being excluded, Reynolds hurried to the nearby airfield. Bonelli found him readying his plane for takeoff in tears: "“I thought he had had another fight with Libby - he was always upset after these - and tried to kid him out of his mood...He told me that Beatrice Lillie was trying to break up his affair with Libby, that she was throwing a party for Libby but failed to invite him, although she knew that he was staying at Libby’s cottage.” Then, "He hopped off without giving his motors more than a minute’s warming up. He zoomed up off the ground crazily. I thought he was going to crash. His plane wobbled but he held her nose up, then, straight as a crow flies, he headed out into the ocean...He was gone for seven hours and when he returned he admitted that he had intended flying straight out until, gas exhausted, he would fall into the ocean. The least little mechanical trouble would have finished him.”

Smith Reynolds married Libby Holman on November 29, 1931 in the parlor of Monroe, Michigan Justice of the Peace Fred M. Schoepfer, just six days after his divorce from Cannon was final. Holman, although a celebrated Broadway actress, gave up her career to preside over the Reynolds estate, Reynolda House.

After Reynolds' death, Holman gave birth to his son Christopher Smith "Topper" Reynolds three months prematurely on January 11, 1933 in Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the baby weighed 3.5 pounds. Topper Reynolds died in August 1950 at age 17 in a climbing accident on Mount Whitney.

Death

Reynolds died under mysterious circumstances from a shot to his head from a semi-automatic Mauser .32 caliber pistol on the early morning of July 6, 1932, after a 21st birthday party for his friend Charles Gideon Hill, Jr. (July 5, 1911 - October 18, 1960), who was also Anne Cannon Reynolds's first cousin, at his Winston-Salem, North Carolina estate known as Reynolda. His wife Libby Holman Reynolds was pregnant with their child.

Reynolds' boyhood friend and personal assistant Albert Bailey "Ab" Walker had stayed over after the party, and he reported that he heard a gunshot from downstairs and immediately afterwards Holman ran to the balcony and shouted, "Smith's killed himself!" Walker said he found Reynolds bleeding and unconscious upstairs, with a bullet wound in his right temple. With Holman's help, Walker brought Reynolds to North Carolina Baptist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead four hours later at 5:25 am on July 6.

The death was originally ruled a suicide, but a coroner's inquiry subsequently ruled the death a murder. Both Walker and Holman were considered suspects in his death and were both indicted for first-degree murder of Reynolds—Holman for the murder itself and Walker as an accomplice. The murder attracted national attention. Reporters printed allegations that Holman had conducted an affair with Walker. Reynolds' uncle William Neal Reynolds told the district attorney that the family supported dropping the charges; the prosecutor eventually did so for lack of evidence, and no trial was ever held.

Zachary Smith Reynolds is buried in the Salem Cemetery in Winston-Salem.

Legacy

Reynolds' siblings underwent a prolonged fight to receive their share of Reynolds' estate, after which they established a trust in his name that provided for his namesake foundation, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. As a result, many things in the Winston-Salem, NC area are named for Reynolds. The local airport (Smith Reynolds Airport) and the main library at Wake Forest University are named in his honor.

References

1. Bradshaw, Jon (1985). Dreams That Money Can Buy: The Tragic Life of Libby Holman. William Morrow & Co. p. 23. ISBN 978-0688011581.
2. "Death of Z. Smith Reynolds". Reynolda Revealed.
3. "Death was a tale fit for film". Winston-Salem Journal. February 2, 2012.
4. Peters, Mason (Dec 1987). "Smith Reynolds: The man and the mystery" (PDF). Greensboro News & Record.
5. McGee, Barry. "R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company". NCPedia.
6. "R.J. Reynolds house, 666 West Fith Street…". North Carolina Collection.
7. Mayer, Barbara (April 1, 1997). Reynolda: A History of an American Country House. Blair. pp. 15–16. ISBN 0895871556.
8. Mayer, Barbara. Reynolda: A History of an American Country House. pp. 64–65.
9. Mayer, Barbara. Reynolda: A History of an American Country House.
10. Mayer, Barbara. Reynolda: A History of an American Country House. p. 65.
11. Mayer, Barbara. Reynolda: A History of an American Country House. p. 28.
12. "R. J. Reynolds and Katharine Smith Reynolds Correspondence Collection". North Carolina Digital Heritage Center.
13. Mayer, Barbara. Reynolda: A History of an American Country House. p. 65.
14. Mayer, Barbara. Reynolda: A History of an American Country House. p. 75.
15. Tilley, Nannie M. The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press. p. 287.
16. The Gilded Leaf: Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune. pp. 109–115.
17. The Gilded Leaf: Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune. p. 122.
18. Dreams That Money Can Buy: The Tragic Life of Libby Holman. p. 34.
19. The Gilded Leaf: Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune. p. 122.
20. "AVIATION". Reynolda Revealed.
21. Perry, Hamilton Darby (October 1, 1983). Libby Holman: Body and Soul (1st ed.). Little Brown & Co. pp. 36–37.
22. "Zachary Smith Reynolds Log of Aeroplane NR-898W". ArchivesSpace.
23. "Zachary Smith Reynolds Log of Aeroplane NR-898W". ArchivesSpace.
24. Bradshaw, Jon. Dreams That Money Can Buy: The Tragic Life of Libby Holman.
25. "ZACHARY SMITH REYNOLDS LOG OF AEROPLANE NR-898W". Southwest Virginia Digital Archive.
26. "ZACHARY SMITH REYNOLDS LOG OF AEROPLANE NR-898W". Southwest Virginia Digital Archive.
27. Reynolds, Patrick; Shachtman, Tom. The Gilded Leaf: Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune. Little Brown & Co. p. 156.
28. Reynolds, Patrick; Shachtman, Tom. The Gilded Leaf: Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune. Little Brown & Co. p. 157.
29. "Now leaving for Paris, Rome, Baghdad and points east…". North Carolina Collection.
30. "ZACHARY SMITH REYNOLDS LOG OF AEROPLANE NR-898W". Southwest Virginia Digital Archive.
31. "Savoia Marchetti S.56C". Carolinas Aviation Museum.
32. The Gilded Leaf: Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune. pp. 137–139.
33. The Gilded Leaf: Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune. pp. 139–142.
34. The Gilded Leaf: Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune. p. 145.
35. Machlin, Milt (July 1, 1980). Libby. Tower & Leisure Sales Co. p. 129.
36. Machlin, Milt (July 1, 1980). Libby. Tower & Leisure Sales Co. p. 130.
37. Machlin, Milt (July 1, 1980). Libby. Tower & Leisure Sales Co. p. 131.
38. Machlin, Milt (July 1, 1980). Libby. Tower & Leisure Sales Co. p. 133.
39. The Gilded Leaf: Triumph, Tragedy, and Tobacco: Three Generations of the R. J. Reynolds Family and Fortune. p. 149.
40. Machlin, Milt. Libby. pp. 134–135.
41. Machlin, Milt. Libby. p. 134.
42. ^ Tursi, Frank (1994). Winston-Salem: A History. John F. Blair, publisher. p. 194.
43. (December 10, 1909 in Chicago, Illinois - August 2, 1954) who died of lung cancer at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Winston-Salem, North Carolina)

External links

• Winston-Salem Journal Series Death at Reynolda - Z. Smith Reynolds
• The Z Smith Reynolds Foundation
• Z. Smith Reynolds Airport
• Biography of Libby Holman Reynolds on the official Jane Bowles site
• Zachary Smith Reynolds' grave site
• Kathryn Reynolds (photographer)
• "Reynolds v. Reynolds". Time Magazine. 1933-01-23. Retrieved 2008-08-09.

Further reading

• Bradshaw, Jon. Dreams That Money Can Buy: The Tragic Life of Libby Holman, William Morrow & Co., 1985, ISBN 978-0688011581
• Machlin, Milt, Libby, Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc., 1990, ISBN 0-8439-3028-4
• Reynolds, Patrick and Shachtman, Tom, The Gilded Leaf, iUniverse, Inc., 2006, ISBN 0-595-36658-9

• 1911 births
• 1932 deaths
• 1932 murders in the United States
• Deaths by firearm in North Carolina
• People murdered in North Carolina
• American murder victims
• American aviators
• People from Winston-Salem, North Carolina
• Reynolds family
• 1932 in North Carolina