R. J. Reynolds, Jr.

Richard Joshua Reynolds Jr. (April 4, 1906 – December 14, 1964) was an American entrepreneur and the son of R.J. Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Biography Reynolds was an American businessman, politician, activist and philanthropist. In 1934, he acquired Sapelo Island on the Atlantic coast of Georgia and, following the death of Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston in 1938, the Butler Island Plantation Reynolds was appointed treasurer of the Democratic National Committee in early 1941 before being elected mayor of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a few months later. He took a leave of absence from his mayoral duties and resigned his treasurer post in 1942 when he began military service as a lieutenant at the Naval Combat Intelligence School in Quonset Point, Rhode Island.