CIGAR HISTORY 1760-1860
A National Cigar Museum EXCLUSIVE
© Tony Hyman
1760 Pierre Lorillard opens snuff mill in New York City. Quickly expands to other tobacco products.
1761 Spanish King re-enacts ban on selling Cuban tobacco or cigars to foreign powers. After the brief British take-over of Havana in 1762, the ban was reestablished in 1764.
1762 England captures Havana for nine months, during which more international shipping went through Cuba than in two and a half centuries of Spanish control. The entire world got introduced to Cuban tobacco, exotic hardwoods, and fruits. Spain got Cuba back by treaty but learned that once a pleasure is known to the world, it is very difficult to hide or control.
1763 British Lt. Col. Israel Putnam returned to CT from occupation of Havana with cigar tobacco seed and more than 30,000+ cigars. How much seed? No one knows, but tobacco is one of the world’s tiniest seeds. Enough to plant 500 acres will fit inside a standard lipstick tube (about 300,000 seeds to the ounce).
1770’s Quality of New England tobacco steadily improves.
1770 William Demuth opens tobacconist shop at 114 East King St., Lancaster, PA.
1770 Cigar smoking begins to catch on in New England and major North American port cities. Cigars were cheap and almost entirely home made, made by farm wives and peddled by their husbands or traded to Yankee wagon peddlers.
1770 W.H. Laverack opens Chemist’s dispensary (drug store) which in the mid 1800’s advertises “a choice selection of well-matured cigars, at reasonable prices, always on hand” in the town of Malton.
1770 A. Hillen Sigarenfabriek established (the Red Anchor Cigar Factory) in Delft, Holland according to its label, alternately listed as 1772 on other of the company’s cigar labels.
1772 Cuban governor sets up Pinar del Rio as its own Province and commissioned Jose Varea to locate a site for a capital.
1773 Pipe smoking falling out of fashion among the English gentry.
1774 Town of Pinar del Rio founded in Western Cuba, becoming the Provincial capitol of the newly created Province of Pinar del Rio, home of the Vuelta Abajo region, already known for quality leaf. Travel is very difficult in Cuba. Roads are horrendous and remain that way until U.S. economic control of the island in the 1900’s. Tobacco is transported 40 or more miles by oxcart over muddy rutted roads.
1775 Virginia shipped 400± million pounds to tobacco in the early 1770’s, 150 million of which went to England, the remainder to the rest of Europe. At the start of the Revolution “Virginia” consisted of present day WV, KY, OH, IN, IL, MI, WI and MN. Each of those future states grew tobacco.
1775 R. and J. Hill open tobacco works at the Spinet House, London. Exact date the company started making cigars is unknown.
1776 US colonies declare independence from England. Tobacco growers were in perpetual debt to British merchants. Taxes were heavy. Tobacco helped finance the Revolution by serving as collateral for French loans.
1779 Jonathan Carver, Esq., recommended the British should plant New England tobacco in England because of its hardiness and strong taste, which the English preferred.
1781 Spanish King begins a 100 year long monopoly of tobacco growing and cigar manufacture in the Philippines (lifted in 1882). Philippine cigars, usually called Manillas, are more popular than US cigars in Europe and Asia. Few U.S. cigars are ever exported.
1783 Treaty of Paris officially ends the Revolutionary War.
1783 Cigars are being imported into the U.S. from the West Indies (Cuba and Jamaica) into Boston. (earliest confirmed mention of commercial importing of cigars from the Caribbean I have found so far)
1783 Parliament studies tobacco and smuggling and comes to conclusion that their laws were ineffectual. Smugglers could afford to lose 60% of their shipments and still make substantial profit. Remind you of something today? New enforcement laws resulted in collecting taxes on an additional 1,000,000 pounds of tobacco in 1784. After only two years of enforcement, the English treasury showed a surplus of one million pounds sterling thanks to tobacco taxes. Hmmm?
1784 Austrian government takes over management of the tobacco monopoly which previously they had rented out. The government administered cigar and tobacco factories in Hainburg (Austria), Ferstenfeld (Styria), Milan and Venice (Italy), Trent and Schwarz (Tyrol), Sedlitz (Bohemia), Goeding (Moravia) and Winiki (Galicia). Approximately 7,000 workers supplied 1,000 wholesalers and 30,000 retail dealers.
1784 H.C. Lloyd & Son open tobacco works in Exeter, England. Begin cigar production at unknown date.
1784 R. Lloyd & Sons open tobacco works in London, England. Begin cigar production at unknown date. Later become part of Cope Brothers cigar and cigarette operation.
1786 Explorer Sebastian Cobb reports Kayuga Indians growing 60 acres of tobacco near present day Elmira, NY. Wrote to his sister in NH that he was considering becoming a tobacco planter too.
1788 First cigar factory in Germany established in Hamburg. The city becomes one of Europe’s cigar making centers.
1788 Only three stage coaches a week make the 170 mile trip from Boston to New Haven. Commerce in the colonies is starting to boom after the Revolution and by 1796, 20+ will be making the trip.
1789 US Government raises protective tariffs to protect the infant US cigar industry. Imported cigars paid a tax of 6¢ a pound, which works out to roughly 30¢ to 50¢ per 1,000 segars.
1789 Consumer size boxes of 100 cigars are offered for sale in a NYC newspaper, May 1789. (earliest confirmed mention of a box of 100 I have found so far)
1789 P. Lorillard begins running an illustrated newspaper display ad offering common cigars in the August NY Advertiser. The ad can be seen in the Lorillard and Tin exhibit.
1789 Spanish government published manual on proper growing and handling of tobacco, including instructions regarding cigar manufacture (according to Mara (see bibliography), but Mara’s mention of binder leaf is of questionable accuracy as are a number of his assertions regarding bands and boxes).
1789 Desola & Co., cigar manufacturers and importers of Cuban cigars and cigarettes, established on Grosvenor Square in London, England.
1790 Hudden & Co. open first tobacco/cigar factory in Bristol, England, on Avon Street.
1790 W.A. & A.C. Churchman open first tobacco/cigar factory in Ipswich, England, on Portman Road.
1790 Hignett Bros & Co. open cigar factory at Whitechapel in Liverpool, England.
1790 Hy Archer & Co. open cigar factory on High Street SE, in London, England.
1791 President Mirabeau of France and the National Assembly retracted the ban on growing and selling tobacco.
1791 Alexander Hamilton’s report to congress on the state of manufacturing in the US includes tobacco manufacture as one of the nation‘s basic industries
1792 Leaf tobacco was exported from NH, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, VA, NC, SC, and GA. The leading export states, accounting for roughly 3/4 of the total, were Virginia and Maryland. Manufactured tobacco (snuff, pipe tobacco, chaw and cigars) were shipped from MA, NY, PA, MD, VA, SC and GA with Massachusetts accounting for 92% of the cigar total.
1792 Samuel Gawith opens snuff mill and cigar factory at the Canal Works in Kendal, England.
1794 US Government (the 1st Congress) passed an excessive tax on snuff, then regarded as “a rich man’s luxury.” Manufacturers in Philadelphia vigorously fought against the tax and it was rescinded in two years.
1794 James Madison argues against a tobacco tax because it falls heaviest on the poor, the day laborers and common seamen. Madison calls tobacco an “innocent gratification.”
1794 John Hancart announces (via an ad in the Philadelphia AMERICAN DAILY ADVERTISER) the opening of his cigar and tobacco factory making common cigars as well as snuff, pipe tobacco and chewing tobacco in Germantown, PA, outside Philadelphia. “Orders from any part of the continent” are solicited. Ad is on Museum display.
1795 Adkin & Sons open cigar factory on Dingley Road, London, England.
1795 Tyler & Co. begin cigar production at Castle Gate in Nottingham, England.
1795 Ireland imports 2.5 pounds of tobacco per person.
1796 US Government taxes locally made snuff at the rate of 60% of the selling price. The snuff tax was snuffed after two years because the cost of collecting it was more than the revenue raised.
1796 Most of the cigars smoked in U.S. come from the U.S. or Europe. Most cigars advertised in U.S. claim to be from “Havana.”
1796 725 ships enter the port of Boston. Boston’s principal exports are rum, beer, loaf sugar, rope and cord, sail cloth, playing cards, pot and pearl ashes, wall paper, hats, silver plate, glass, tobacco and chocolate. Boston is home to 30 distilleries, 2 breweries, 8 sugar houses and 11 rope and cord makers.
1796 The New York Weekly Magazine for Wednesday, August 24, 1796 noted: “There is nothing, perhaps, more pernicious, or more destructive to the health of man, than the present practice of segar-smoaking. It is of all others the most disagreeable, as well as the most obnoxious thing in use...”
1798 Boston passes law against segar smoking on public streets. Both cigar and pipe smokers are restricted to Boston Commons. The law wasn’t repealed until 1880.
1800± Don Francisco Cabañas (various dates from 1797 - 1810) approved by Spanish Crown to export Cuban cigars. When his daughter took over upon his death, the brand was renamed HIJA DE CABANAS Y CARBAJAL, then around the 1860’s shortened to H. DE CABANAS Y CARBAJAL.
1800 Paper in which quantities of loose tobacco were wrapped at the tobacconist’s often contained printed poems, riddles or “grotesque heads, chiefly African.” Designs were probably shop idiosyncratic. Who made the first one, and where? ¿Quien sabe? (Who knows? Said with the proper Latin shoulder shrug it also means “Who cares?”)
1801 Connecticut cigar tobacco production reaches 20,000 pounds.
1804 At the time of the Louisiana purchase, tobacco production had spread up the Mississippi to Natchez, and New Orleans was shipping 2,000 hogsheads a year, mostly to France, but also to Cuba.
1804 Cuba importing tobacco from US to keep up with European demand for cigars.
1804 Customs records from 1804 show the U.S. imported 4,000,000 cigars a year from Cuba, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Florida.
1804 Protective tariffs designed to help the fledgling U.S. cigar industry were raised to $2 per box (of 1,000) for cigars imported from Europe or the Caribbean.
1805 Cuban economist Francisco de Arango y Parreno wrote a formidable treatise defending the idea of freeing the Cuban tobacco industry from the Royal monopoly.
1806 Ad on front page of Charleston (South Carolina) Courier seeks 3 cigar makers.
1810 Bernardino Rencurrel founds export cigar factory in Cuba.
1810 Roswell Viets started a cigar factory in East Windsor, CT, and his brother Simeon [alt: Samuel] Viets started one in West Suffield, CT. Simeon/Samuel set up cigar factory, by hiring Cuban to teach [12?] local women to roll cigars. First employees reported as Clarissa King and Sally Ingraham. Cigars rolled from a mix of local tobacco and cheapest grade of Cuban. Widely, and incorrectly, touted as first U.S. cigar factory.
1810 The 1810 census recorded 29,000,000 domestic cigars as having been made, mostly in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Cincinnati. Small makers throughout NY, PA, and New England were not counted. See 1811 Philadelphia cigar maker’s ad in the exhibit of boxes containing 250 cigars.
1810 Frishmuth Bro. & Co. established in Philadelphia. Makers of sweet scented smoking tobacco.
1811 Ads for consumer-size boxes of 100 cigars appear in newspapers in Boston. Have ad.
1811 The Secretary of State of the Spanish Royal Treasury recommends abolition of the monopoly.
1811 English tobacconists offer cigars banded with hand written epigrams, much like Chinese fortune cookies, wrapped around them. Earliest recorded cigar bands.
1811 John Hunter, Morris & Elkan begin making cigars at St. Mary Axe, London, England. Become importers of Cuban, Mexican and Philippine cigars and Egyptian cigarettes.
1812 Common cigars sold for between $1 and $2 per thousand wholesale, and retailers did their own boxing, banding and branding. Better quality cigars, known as half-Spanish brought $4 per 1,000 and sold retail for a penny.
1813 A Colonel in the British Grenadier Guards dismisses a complaint about short rations during the 1812 war against France and the United States, saying his soldiers thrived on a diet of “brandy and cigars.” graphic illustration
1814 To keep tobacco from drying out, it was frequently wrapped in skins dampened with various substances, including stale urine according to a contemporary writer.
1814 English writer (in 1839) says of 1814 that good cigars were unobtainable except from ship captains arriving from the West Indies. However, trans-shipping of cigars from the U.S. to Cuba and back to the U.S. was relatively common.
1815 The importation of Spanish cigars into England finally officially permitted, after the Peace of 1815. Import taxes were high.
1815 L. Hirst & Son open cigar factory in Waterloo House, at Kirk Gate, in Leeds, England.
1816 Parliamentary House of Commons committee decides to continue ban on growing tobacco in England.
1817 Spanish King abolished the monopoly and decreed freedom of cultivation and trade. Cuban cigar and tobacco production begins to flourish even tho a large export tax levy accompanied permission to sell cigars and tobacco around the world.
1818 Robert Roberts & Sons open tobacco works on Finsbury Pavement, London, England. Begins cigar making at unknown date.
1819 Sir Walter Scott, a heavy smoker, decides to limit himself to one cigar a day;
1820 An English “gentleman” was expected to keep on hand a selection of cigars and pipe tobaccos to offer visitors.
1820 Article in London magazine claims most Cuban cigars sold in England were frauds, made locally. Every indication is that was the case.
1820 Blome’s Cigar factory already operating in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Sold in 1846 to Fred Curtis.
1820 Acker, Merrall & Condit, wholesale grocers, founded in NYC. Distributed food, liquor and cigars until bankruptcy in 1932.
1820 Carter, Hodges & Co. opens cigar factory on Friday Street in London, England.
1821 Parliament decides to emphasize legal provisions in place against adulteration as tobacconists were abusing provisions allowing small amounts of coloring and flavoring.
1820’s Cigar and pipe tobacco grown in KY and TN was exported to world markets through New Orleans.
1820’s Wooden carved highlanders in uniform begin replacing black boys as the “cigar store Indian” of choice in England and Scotland. Cigar store figures were manufactured doll size to larger than life-size.
1821 First commercial lithography establishment in NYC.
1821 Austrians smoke 1 1/4 pounds of domestically manufactured tobacco per person in pipes and cigars. Tobacco is almost all from Transylvania and Hungary. Consumption does not include tobacco smuggled in, an estimated half pound per person.
1823 Despite their popularity, only 26 pounds of cigars were reported as legally imported into England. Key word is legally, as taxes were high, smuggling was rewarding.
1823 Lord Byron becomes the unofficial poet laureate of the cigar thanks to The Island and the lines “Yet thy true lovers more admire by far Thy naked beauties--Give me a cigar!”
1823 Banks & James open cigar factory on Ford Street in Coventry, England.
1824 Louisiana Acadians, notably Pierre Chenet, develop a new type of pipe and cigarette tobacco called Perique, created by multi-month curing of foot-long twists of leaf under pressure in its own juices. Very strong, it was unsuitable for cigars, and blended in small quantities for other uses. Always in very limited supply, it was expensive, selling for $1 a pound.
1824 P.J. Carroll & Co. open tobacco works on Church Street in Dundalk, Ireland. Begin cigar production at a later unknown date. One of few Irish cigar factories.
1825 Cigar tobacco warehouses established in CT. It is reported that Connecticut cigars were called Windsor Particulars, Long Nines, Supers and Sixes. Perhaps true, but I have found no original material to support this possibly single source claim. I have one reference referring to cigars as “sixes.”
1825 Lewis Bremer’s Sons, importers and packers of Havana tobacco opened in Philadelphia 322-324 No. 3rd st..
1825 Joseph Kirk opens the first cigar & stogie factory in Wheeling, West Virginia.
1825 John Pendelton imports French lithograph machinery and an experienced operator into Boston, sets up shop.
1826 Ohio begins exporting a Maryland type tobacco called “Eastern Ohio Export” tobacco. Rich soils of Ohio and “Western U.S.” are particularly well suited to the soil-depleting tobacco crop, producing heavy leaves popular in the European market.
1826 to 1830 Cuba averages 245,097 boxes of cigars exported annually. Boxes contain 1,000 cigars.
1826 In Europe cigars are divided into five types: Havanas, Imitation Havanas, First Quality, Second quality and Third Quality. After taxes, Imitation Havanas cost equivalent of $3.50 per box of 100 at retailers. Lowest quality retailed for a penny or less.
1826 England: Morris & Sons, cigarmakers, open in London. “Three or four small factories were in existence at the time.”
1827 Spanish taxes on Cuban farming and manufacture were eliminated, but taxes on leaf export and cigars remain. Worldwide acceptance of leaf and cigars made the industries profitable despite taxes.
1827 Luis Caire set up Cuba’s first Lithographic company: Imprenta Litografica Habanera. It is claimed that Cuban lithographers began printing labels in color two years before those in the U.S.
1827 Jaime Partagas Ravelo’s first Havana cigar factory is founded.
1827 Full color satirical print depicting Cuban factory flavoring cigars with vomit, sold in London. (earliest illustration of a cigar factory I have seen so far; exhibited in the NCM)
1827 J. Stafford, Son & Oswin open cigar factory on Upper Charles Street in Leicester, England.
1827 Friction match invented, making smoking more mobile.
1828 Though planted earlier, it isn’t until now that PA cigar tobacco reaches commercial importance.
1828 Tobacco planting introduced into Florida.
1828 D.L. Trujillo begins rolling cigars in Havana. Soon thereafter opens his own factory producing Flor de D.L. Trujillo, a brand made for more than 70 years in Havana and later in New York, and Key West.
1829 Cutting British import taxes in half put cigars in the reach of a great many more English smokers. Importation of cigars multiplies eight-fold.
1829 Spanish factory in Seville begins hiring gypsy women, often young teens, as cigar rollers.
1829 The Austrian tobacco monopoly brought in $3,300,000 into the treasury. In the next seven years that figure doubled to $7,525,000, reflecting the sharp rise in demand. Everyone smokes or snuffs. Meerschaum pipes are preferred and become a matter of great pride. Shops offer a wide range of cigars.
1829 Combination Cigar Co. founded in New Ipswich, NH (still around in 1889): business card
1829 [?] Baldwin founded a machine shop in Richmond, VA, as manufacturer of agricultural machinery. In 1849 will become long-lived Cardwell Machine Co. specializing in tobacco processing equipment. Company still around in 2000.
1829 Committee of the House of Commons acknowledges that 3/4th of the tobacco consumed in England is smuggled in, and that laws and government agents cannot suppress smuggling as long as taxes twelve times the value of the tobacco are being charged.
1830 254,000 pounds of cigars legally imported into England, up 10,000x in just a few years thanks to sharp reduction in import taxes. That’s roughly 30,000,000 cigars.
1830 Commercial lithography introduced into Baltimore by former sign painter George Endicott.
1830 Jose Garcia's MI FAMA POR EL ORBE VUELTA brand created.
1830 Pottsville, PA, advertises in Boston newspaper, asking for a cigar maker to take up residence.
1830 John Player, ultimately one of England’s most important tobacco personages, opens tobacco works in Nottingham, England. Begins cigar production at unknown date. Most famous for cigarettes. Ultimately John Player & Sons; later a branch of the Imperial Tobacco combine.
1831 Seven year old Adam Valentine begins working as a stripper in Abraham Harner’s cigar factory in Rehrersburg, PA. Two years later, age nine, he became a roller. At age 16 he moved to Womelsdorf, PA, married at 20, and started his own factory at 24.
1831 “Several” cigar factories were in operation in Suffield, CT, and factories had been established here and there throughout the tobacco regions of Connecticut. Cigars made in New England trade at $1.00 to $1.50 per 1,000 to peddlers. They are generally a mix of domestic local tobacco and low grade Cuban.
1831 to 1835 Cuba averages 99,763 boxes of cigars exported annually. Boxes contain 1,000 cigars.
1830’s Cigars are very fashionable in Europe and US cities. Pipe smokers carry tobacco pouches when out of the house. Coffee houses are popular smoking centers.
1832 Porfirio Larrañaga starts factory according to box.
1834 Ignacio Larrañaga starts factory according to Mara’s book
1832 W.T. Davies & Sons opens cigar factory on Canal Street in Chester, England.
1833 to 1840 During this period 638,857 boxes containing 1,000 foreign cigars each are imported into the United States. Total value only $7,000,000, about a penny apiece. That’s more expensive than it sounds as most Americans earned less than $2 a week in cash.
1833 Time zones standardized due to needs of growing railroad industry. Andrew Jackson becomes the first sitting President to ride a railroad, tho John Quincy Adams (out of office) rode sooner.
1833 “It is past all doubt that three-quarters of the tobacco consumed in Ireland, if not more than one-half of all that is consumed in Great Britain, is smuggled into the country to avoid the high duties (taxes). Nearly all the cigars (so perfectly convenient for the contraband trade, and on which there is a nine shilling duty per pound) are smuggled ashore.” The official tables of Cuba and England show that, in one year while Cuba exported nearly 10,000,000 pounds of cigars to England, only 141,000 pounds paid the English duty.
1833 CT Broadleaf, first great US cigar tobacco, developed about this time from MD seed (which originally came from Havana). 90 years of crop expansion and use follow.
1833 A carelessly discarded cigar butt in the planing mill led to a fire which destroyed 72 of the 74 buildings in Cumberland, PA.
1833± The value of ‘sweating’ cigar tobacco discovered accidentally. Think of it as similar to creating a tightly packed compost pile. Growers and warehousemen quickly begin sweating all cigar tobacco which improved it greatly, beginning the era of fine tobacco from CT. By the 1840’s sweated tobacco replaced Cuban in most cigars made in the northeastern U.S.
1834± About this time, US tobacco farmers began selling their crops to leaf warehouses rather than making the cigars themselves. Local warehouses grew in importance selling to larger warehouses in cities, or directly to traveling buyers representing factories. Large commercial warehouses began springing up in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
1834 Ignacio Larrañaga registers the brand POR LARRANAGA in Havana. Large chest, other boxes.
1834 Asian Journal magazine reports the Spanish King’s Royal cigar factory outside of Manilla employs 4,000 women in the manufacture of cigars and 1,000 men in the manufacture of cigarettes. Though highly prized worldwide (selling in Europe and Asia for higher prices than Cuban cigars), most of the factory’s output is smoked in the Philippines.
1834 NY Sun reports the Spanish King’s Royal cigar factory located a mile west of Mexico City is six acres in size and employs between 3,000 and 6,000 people, “the greater portion of whom reside within the walls.” The government's wholesale outlet in Mexico City is supplied by “300 mules constantly conveying the cigars packed in bundles of 1,000 or in large boxes holding 50,000.”
1834 William F. Comly & Son, cigar auctioneers, opens at 27 S. 2nd St., Philadelphia. In 1910, they advertise they sold 14,000,000 cigars between 1905-1910.
1834 England imports 38,000,000 pounds of tobacco from the U.S. and 700,000 pounds from the rest of the world. 666 people are employed in England, Ireland and Scotland in tobacco manufacture. England exported 13,000,000 pounds of manufactured tobacco products.
1834 Thorns, Son & Co. opens cigar factory in Boston, England.
1835 England’s cost of collecting 630,000 pounds sterling in tobacco taxes was 800,000 pounds sterling.
1835 To meet worldwide demand for Cuban tobacco 35,000 tobacco farms (vegas) are under cultivation in Cuba. Farms are usually 33 acres or less, half of which is devoted to food crops. Plantings of high quality leaf in Western Cuba (Pinar del Rio / Vuelta Abajo) greatly expanded during 1830’s.
1835 Ed Weber begins litho business in Baltimore. In 1853 his company becomes A. Hoen & Co., the largest printer of smoking and chewing tobacco labels in the western hemisphere.
1835 John Putney & Son go into the business of manufacturing cedar, mahogany and other general and slide-lid boxes for the cigar, tobacco and enema trade. They also milled and sold fine lumber in London.
1835 to 1840 Cuban cigar exports way up, averaging 790,286 boxes of 1,000 cigars a year during this period. In part this reflects higher quality and availability thanks to increased production in Vuelta Abajo.
1836 The Spanish King’s Royal cigar factory in Seville employs 1,000 male rollers and 1,600 females who make approximately 650,000 cigars a day. The smaller Royal factory in Malaga makes 140,000 a day. They are paid piece rates and a top roller makes about 15 English cents a day, about what two or three cigars will sell for in London. “Home made Havannahs” (English made) sell for 3¢ or less.
1836 An Austrian private citizen who wants to import Spanish or Cuban cigars rather than buy from the Austrian state monopoly must obtain a permit and pay a fee. So many applications were made that the government discontinued the practice and began importing better grade cigars than those made locally. Wholesalers to whom the government sells are permitted to make 1.5% profit and retailers from 2% to 10% depending on the product, quality and demand. Wounded war veterans are given preference when the government sells retailer’s licenses.
1836 John Wood & Son established cigarette factory in London at 23-25 Queen Victoria St.
1836 The port of New York handled almost 2,500,000 pounds of Ohio tobacco.
1836 Berdan & Co., “largest independent handler of cigars” in the U.S., established in Toledo, Ohio.
1836 Shipwrights become the first trade Union in the United States to secure a 10 hour day, but only on repair work, not new construction.
1836 B.H. Manus established in the Netherlands as tobacco wholesaler. Widely known throughout the world, especially in the European government-operated tobacco production systems. The company becomes important in the introduction of Sumatran tobacco into the U.S.
1837 Ramon and Antonio Allones arrive in Cuba. Nee reports their cigar brand starting in 1845.
1837 One-quarter of all the tobacco consumed in England and Scotland is smuggled in to avoid duties or because it comes from politically incorrect ports. Import tax was paid on 140,000 pounds of cigars imported from Europe and Cuba. That translates to about 17,000,000 cigars.
1837 England: Though cigar smoking was rising steadily, some critics considered smoking a cigar while walking down the street to be “fast” behavior in England.
1837 English writer says “ No people in the world smoke worse tobacco, or pay so dear for it, as the people of this country. The very worst kinds of leaf, which nowhere else could find a market, meet with a ready sale among the English...”
1837 Andrew Jackson proclaimed a ten hour day for the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
1838 Florida’s “Old Speckled Leaf” tobacco was an important cigar wrapper leaf, renown for its “broad, silky, beautifully spotted leaf.” Production abandoned after the Civil War. After the Centennial, Cuban and Sumatran tobaccos become more important as wrappers, forming the basis of Florida’s cigar industry.
1838 The first high quality cigar tobacco planted in the Miami Valley section of southwestern OH. Tobacco was more profitable than wheat or corn and production spread quickly.
1838 Tur Hermanos open factory in Zaragoza, Spain, specializing in licorice for the tobacco trade.
1838 RIFLE and DOS AMIGOS Cuban cigars offered for sale in Boston newspaper ad, the earliest mention of Cuban cigars by brand name that I have yet found in an advertisement. LA CARONA [sic] is used on a shipping manifest from this year, six years before the date the company uses as its founding. See label in Cuba exhibit
1839 Use of charcoal as a fuel in the process of curing Southern US tobacco discovered to produce a sweet yellow tobacco useful for pipes and chewing, and later for cigarettes. Revolutionizes the industry.
1839 Cuban government raises export tax on cigars to 50¢ per box (1,000) cigars.
1839 US imports tobacco from Cuba and Amsterdam primarily, some middle east, other quantities nominal. England imports cigar and smoking tobacco from all over the world including Virginia, Maryland, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Syria, etc. Cigar sellers are plentiful in England and US.
1839 Paper-wrapped cigarettes are also widely available in England, France and Russia, and in some countries taxed heavily. France made cigarettes part of the tobacco monopoly.
1839 From A Paper of Tobacco (1839): “The quantity of cigars legally imported into England bears no proportion to the quantity consumed. Most of the cigars sold as “real Havannahs” and ”prime old Cubas,” are manufactured in the neighbourhood of Goodman’s Fields; where, alas, musty old leaves, which have, as the brokers’ circulars express it, “rather an oddish smell,” are converted into genuine Bengal cheroots.”
1839 John Hull and Lawrence Mooney brought lithography to Buffalo, NY. No evidence for cigar labels being printed in other than black ink on white paper.
1839 Cuba’s first school of lithography established in Havana by Francisco Cosnier. Cigar labels almost all printed in black ink on white and colored papers.
1839 The Sociedad Economica de Amigos del Pais founded a school for apprentices in tobacco work in Havana. The following year the school had 853 pupils, 178 of whom were training to become cigar makers.
1839 The city of Philadelphia opened an official warehouse for the inspection of tobacco passing through. The first year it inspected 4,366 hogsheads, almost all from Kentucky.
1839 Cuba exports 637,558 cigars to the U.S.
1839 Puerto Rico grows 4,320,339 pounds of tobacco. Island’s principle products are sugar and coffee.
1839 Austrian tobacco monopoly sells $22,795,000 worth of tobacco and cigars. A box of “extra fine 4 inch cigars in polished maple boxes of 100” sell for $1.50 wholesale. Fine 3 1/4 inch cigars in polished walnut boxes of 100 sold for $1. “Ordinary loose long and short cigars” brought 62¢ per 100.
1839 Horace R. Kelly goes into the cigar making business, manufacturing GEORGE THE FOURTH cigars in Key West, Florida. Advertises on 1890’s[?] celluloid change tray that he is “The oldest cigar firm in the U.S.” and has an office in New York and factory in Tampa. His Key West factory (#16) has 200 rollers in 1886, but he is not in Directories for 1893 or 1905.
1839 J.R. Freeman & Son open cigar factory on Fulham Road at Walham Green in London, England.
1840 First colored paper wrappers for bundles of cigarettes printed in Cuba. Are these the first worldwide?
Black ink on colored paper were first cigar labels. Soon thereafter, during this decade, colored inks on white paper appeared. See examples of early Cuban colored printing in NCM exhibit of early Cuban labels.
1840 Austrian population is 37,000,000, about the same as France, double that of the U.S. Prussia had 14,000,000 and the German confederation about 27,000,000. Hungary, then part of Austria, consumes an amount of tobacco equal to half the entire U.S. crop. Hungarian tobacco travels to the capital from 150 to 200 miles over roads that even in the primitive U.S. would be considered impassable. This low grade tobacco sells for less than 1¢ per pound and makes up 5/6ths of Austrian-Hungarian consumption.
1840 Housatonic Valley, CT, begins growing better quality cigar tobacco. Total CT cigar tobacco production for year was 720,000 pounds.
1840 U.S. tobacco consumption equals 2 pounds for every man, woman and child. Highest in Mid-Atlantic and South, lowest in Northeast. U.S. population of the “Atlantic strip” was 8.6 million while that of the “Valley of the Mississippi” was 8.4 million. By 1840, consumption of manufactured tobacco had grown to the point where Virginia and North Carolina alone were home to 350 tobacco factories.
1840 Americans smoke approximately 80,000,000 Cuban cigars a year, some of which were made in the U.S., exported to Cuba, rebranded and shipped to the U.S. as Havana cigars. Such transshipments were common with U.S. and European cigars. In 1840, $58,000 worth of U.S. leaf, stems and cigars were shipped to Cuba. Another $8 million in snuff was also sent. See details in exhibit.
1840 Around this time, U.S. demand for cigar rollers is so great they can find work anywhere. New towns routinely advertise in distant big city newspapers for them. Rollers were highly mobile craftsmen as all the tools a cigar maker needs fit in a knapsack.
1840 Marsh founds MARSH WHEELING stogie factory in Wheeling, WV. Longest running US brand.