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 his farm in CT from occupation of Havana. He brought 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 lipstick tube. It takes 300,000 of these dust-size seeds to weigh an ounce).

1764 Spanish King re-establishes ban on selling Cuban tobacco or cigars to foreign powers. 

1767  Casanova visits Spain and is introduced to cigarettes, called cigarros.

1770’s  Quality of New England tobacco steadily improves as Havana seed adjusts to the climate change.

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 “paste cigars” so called because wrapper was glued to keep it from unwrapping. These were generally rolled by farm wives. Cigars were sold by their husbands or traded to local merchants or Yankee wagon peddlers.

1770  W.H. Laverack opens a 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 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  The Cuban governor sets up Pinar del Rio as a separate Cuban Province and commissioned Jose Varea to locate a site for a capital city for the province.

1773  Pipe smoking falling out of fashion among the English gentry.

1774  The town of Pinar del Rio founded in Western Cuba became 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.

1778  Edwards, Goodwin and Company Ltd., established in Liverpool, England, as buyers, packers and importers of Empire, American and Oriental “and all other leaf tobaccos.”  Still in business 175 years later.

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.

1779  Peter Wendler, a German painter living in Italy, allegedly received a five year contract from the Pope to make cigars.

1780  H. Stevens & Co.Tobaccos Ltd established in Salisbury, England, as manufacturer of snuff and pipe tobaccos. Still in business 175 years later.

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 far more popular than US cigars in Europe and Asia. Relatively few of the billions of U.S. cigars made annually were ever exported. Manillas were especially popular throughout Asia.

1783  Treaty of Paris officially ends the Revolutionary War.

1783  Cigars are being imported into Boston from the West Indies (Cuba and Jamaica). (earliest confirmed mention of commercial importing of cigars from the Caribbean I have found so far)

1783  British 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? Any lessons there for contemporary situations?

1784  Government-owned tobacco factory in Seville reported as also making cigarettes. When exactly they began is not known but the Spanish are known to have been smoking cigarettes for a century.

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.

1785  Baker & Co. begins business in Winchester, PA, as wholesale grocer. Still around in 1900.

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. The area between Elmira and Binghamton became a significant cigar-tobacco region called “Big Flats.”

1787  An 18 line poem about cigars (and a shorter one about pipes) are published in THE AMERICAN MUSEUM  OR REPOSITORY OF ANCIENT AND MODERN FUGITIVE PIECES, PROSE AND POETICAL, a magazine published in Philadelphia, a copy of which is in the Museum.

1787  Jesuit priest Joseph Och returns to Europe after thirty years traveling through Spanish North America. His report includes the following about Mexico: “In the city I was shown a trade completely unknown to me. Here over 10,000 poor girls and 5,000 young men earn their livelihood by making paper tobacco pipes, the length of a finger, which are called cigarros. The width of these pieces of paper are about the thickness of a finger. Into these they roll finely grated smoking tobacco.” This appears to be the earliest mention of cigarette production in Mexico. Cigarette-smoking Mexicans brought the habit to California and the Southwest.  Cigarro is the Cuban word for cigarette. Cigars are tobacos.”

1787±  The best cigarette paper was made by a factory in Valencia, Spain, and sold to the public by booksellers and stationers in the form of small booklets called libritos.

1788  First cigar factory in Germany established in Hamburg by Hans Heinrich Schlottmann, who learned the craft in Spain. Hamburg became 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, more than 20 coaches will be making the trip.

1788  Carreras Tobacco Co., Ltd. established in London NW. Builds the self-proclaimed “world’s most hygienic tobacco factory” in 1926.

1789  The second law passed by the first Congress of the United States is a protectionist tax on imported goods. One of the protected infant industries was cigar making. Imported cigars paid a tax of 6¢ a pound, which works out  to roughly 18¢ to 30¢ 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 issue of the NY Advertiser. Lorillard later described this ad as this the first cigar ad in America, but another company was already running a similar ad when Lorillard placed theirs. 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  John Hunter, a London surgeon, began importing leeches, thus founding the predecessor of Hunters & Frankau, leading importers and merchants in the British cigar industry for two centuries. Numerous mergers, acquisitions and name changes over the years. Still around in 2008.

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

1791  President Mirabeau of France and the National Assembly retracted the ban on growing and selling tobacco.

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, cigars) was shipped from MA, NY, PA, MD, VA, SC and GA with Massachusetts accounting for 92% of the cigar total.

1792  John Hancart of Philadelphia begins building his own processing machinery for a tobacco and snuff manufactory, the products of which are sold in his wholesale and retail tobacconist shop opened in 1794.

1792  Samuel Gawith opens snuff mill and cigar factory at the Canal Works in Kendal, England. His company became the foundation of a long-lived snuff “empire” of three other Kendal snuff-makers including Illingworths Snuffs Ltd.

1792  E. Jonas & Bros. established in London as importers, exporters and dealers in tobacco leaf. Later became Jonas, Elliott & Co. Ltd., still in business in 1950s.

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 after two years.

1794  James Madison argues against a tobacco tax because it falls heaviest on the poor, 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.

1794  Justus van Maurik opens cigar factory in Valkenswaard, the Netherlands. Original brand was Justus van Maurik and is believed to be the oldest Dutch brand of cigars. Company still exists in 2009, but as part of the Swedish Match conglomerate.

1795  Adkin & Sons open cigar factory on Dingley Road, London, 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.

1798  Casanova, in his memoirs, describes cigarettes, an early mention of them in print.

1800±   Don Francisco Cabañas (various dates from 1797 - 1810) was approved by King to make and 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  An English writer described the paper in which quantities of loose tobacco were wrapped 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.

1803  Hang Tai & Fungs Tobacco Co. Ltd. established in Hong Kong. Supplied leaf tobacco, paper, foil, sprays, and other tobacco related supplies throughout the Far East for 150+ years.

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 imports 1,000,000 pounds of 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  Dr. Waterhouse’s Lecture on the “Evil Effects of Cigarrs” [sic] published in Boston.

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.

1807  The first electric-and-gas counter-top lighter was patented in London. A stream of hydrogen was ignited by a spark created by the discharge of an electrophorus, a disc of resin charged by rubbing it on cat-skin. Other similarly creative lighters quickly followed. See 1823.

1807  A German newspaper, Der Anzeiger, reports “When Spanish troops entered our city most of the soldiers were seen to be smoking tobacco rolled in paper.” Shortly thereafter, a Hamburg merchant began making cigarettes of black tobacco. They didn’t catch on..

1809  William Dobie sets up cottage business making snuff and roll tobacco in Paisley. Still around in 1953 as Four Square Tobaccos and Cigarettes, one of England’s largest independent tobacco manufacturers

1810  Bernardino Rencurrel founds export cigar factory in Cuba. He immediately files the first trademark registration in Cuba.   Don Francisco Cabañas becomes the second to register a brand later the same year.

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 his cigar factory, by hiring a Cuban to teach [12?] local women to roll cigars. First employees are 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.

1810  First  patent in England for preserving food in tin, glass, pottery  and other metal containers.

1811  Ads for consumer-size boxes of 100 cigars run 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. 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.

1812  Thomas Kennett establishes a plant in New York to hermetically seal seafood, vegetables, fruits and meats in glass containers.

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  S. Fuguet becomes early exporter of cigars and tobacco from Havana. When his sons joined the company the name was changed to S. Fuguet & Sons. The company opened offices in Philadelphia in 1828. At some time prior to 1885, the  Fuguets merged their assets with those of Henry B. Grauley, owner of the State House Cigar Mfg. Co., Factory 659 (1st Dist.) at 527 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia. The company was known as Grauley and Fuguet and had 35 rollers with an output of roughly 9,000 cigars a day. By 1893 the new company was operated by [sons?] S. and B. Grauley, who continued to import and manufacture cigars under the Grauley name. Letterhead 1895

1818  Robert Roberts & Sons open tobacco works on Finsbury Pavement, London, England. Begins cigar making at unknown date.

1818  Tervakoski Osakeyhtio establishes as a paper mill in Finland, specializing in the international market.

In 1952 they offered “A large, graded assortment of cigarette paper of the utmost purity.”

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 confirms 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  According to THE TIMES, AND HARTFORD ADVERTISER, 12,478,000 segars were imported last year, while the domestic output, made from foreign tobacco, was of “a much greater amount.”  The paper estimated that about 50,000,000 cigars were consumed in the U.S. in 1822.

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.

1823  An Austrian Professor invents the Dobereiner Lamp, a reasonably efficient counter-top lighter using hydrogen gas ignited by platinum. Worked well enough to become popular with tobacconists throughout Europe.

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  The first cigarette factory is established in France.

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 Street.

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.

1825  Allen Taylor granted first patent in the U.S. for process  for making tin cans.  Thomas Kennett applies for patent to use tin containers for the preservation of food.

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.

1826England: Morris & Sons, cigarmakers, open in London. “Three or four small factories were in existence at the time.”

1827  Weyman & Brother go into business as manufacturers of snuff and chewing tobacco in Pittsburg.

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;)

1827  J. Stafford, Son & Oswin open cigar factory on Upper Charles Street in Leicester, England.

1827  Englishman John Walker invents the friction match, making smoking more mobile. He refused to patent his invention and quit making and selling them after only three years, leaving the field wide open to entrepreneurs, a goodly number of whom became wealthy. Samuel Jones copied Walker, renamed the matches “lucifers” and began advertising them in 1829. See 1832.

1828  Though planted earlier, it isn’t until now that PA cigar tobacco crop 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  S. Burkhalter & Co. begins business in New York City as importer and wholesaler of groceries and, at some later date, proprietors of the Excelsior Cigar Factory.

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. Almost everyone in Austria 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  David G. Yuengling established the Eagle Brewing Company in Pottsville, PA, making beer for the area’s coal miners. The name of the brewery was changed to Yuengling in 1876. It remains the oldest US brewery still in the hands of the founding family.

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.

I’d like to quit and go back home.

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  A.J. Foble, owner of a cigar store in Cambridge, MD, purchased a fully painted showfigure of the Roman god Mercury from the Philadelphia studio of of William Rush, a Revolutionary War vet and the nation’s most renown carver for more than half a century. The figure remained on display until 1926 when it was donated to the Maryland Historical Society.

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 cigar factory at 24.  It made cigars for 100+ years.

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.

1832 The Brown Medicine Company founded in Erie, PA. Makers of Smart Weed Extract and Dr. Carter’s Family Medicines group. Dr. Carter’s brand name lasts 100+ years.

1832  A French chemistry student, Charles Sauria, added phosphorus to the friction match creating the first strike-anywhere type. He was unable to raise money to patent his idea and it was almost immediately copied by the Germans, and quickly spread throughout Europe. Matches sputter and spark and are somewhat dangerous to clothing and furniture. See 1855.

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 was 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.”  A 1787 Jusuit visitor described 10,000 “poor girls” making cigarettes in the factory.

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  First cigarmaker’s Union established in London.

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 in England.

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, perhaps at 23-25 Queen Victoria St.  Original factory possibly located on Southwark Street, S.E.  Records unclear.

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. Still in business in early 1900’s.

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. forty years later. 

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.

1837  The city of Chicago is incorporated. The United States is slowly moving Westward.

1838±  Joseph Frankau founds J. Frankau & Co. in Havana. Frankau later joins forces with Herman Upmann, instrumental in managing the brand and factory until 1916.

1838  F. Riehl’s Sons, manufacturers of cigars and dealer in wholesale tobaccos, founded in Buffalo, NY.

1838  Solomon F. Hess opened the doors of S.F. Hess & Co. in Rochester, NY. By the 1880s he manufactured tobacco, cigars and cigarettes and wholesaled leaf tobacco from his warehouse at 57-63 Exchange Street and a 5 story building at 1-5 Pine Street.  IKn 1885 200 Espanolia cigars sold for $5 and 100 Pinodas/Pinocles[sp?] for $3. In 1898 [son? grandson?] F. Judson Hess was company treasurer.

1838  L. Warnick Brown established as manufacturer of tobacco in Utica, NY. Company is still around in 1914.

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 in southwestern Ohio. Tobacco was more profitable than wheat or corn and production spread quickly.

1838  JOB French cigarette papers first manufactured.

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.

1839  LA CARONA [sic] is named on a shipping manifest from this year, six years before the date the current company uses as its founding. See label in Cuba exhibit

1839  NYC newspaper carries an ad offering DOS AMIGOS, LA UNION, INDIAN CASSADORA, NINA, LA PREVIDA, LA PRUTA, PRINCIPES PRUZ, REGALIA, G.R. and DE YARA brand cigars “at the sign of the Indian chief” adjoining the City Hospital at 321 Broadway.

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 non-cigar tobacco 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 manufactured cigarettes as 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  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. Descendants later move factory to Cardiff. Introduced the KING SIX and MANIKIN brands. A century later they bought out J Frankau.

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.

1840  First colored paper wrappers for bundles of cigarettes printed in Cuba.  Are these the first worldwide? Black ink on colored paper were the first cigar labels. Soon, during this decade, colored inks on white paper appeared. See 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. Called “bintoos” by the trade

because they’ve “been to” Cuba.  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  W.M. and M.M. Marsh start stogie factory in Wheeling, WV.  Over time, their brand becomes MARSH WHEELING, the longest running US brand.

1840  Cuba: First PUNCH cigars by Juan Valle. The marca has many owners (1874-1940), eventually Fernandez Palacio y Cia.  For the full story of Punch go Here.  NCM has numerous items and knock-offs.

1840  Cuba: FIGARO  with its distinctive wordy tri-lingual label is established by Julian Rivas. You can see their first box, competitors, cigarette labels, factory illus in other NCM exhibits.

1840  Cuban exports drop to 988,400 cigars to the United States.

1840  Hinsdale Smith & Co. established at 125 Maiden Lane in NYC as importers of Havana tobacco and packers of Connecticut leaf.  By 1905, importers of Sumatra as well. Still in business in 1931.

1840  New York tobacconist John Anderson (Broadway near Thomas St.) hired sexy young Mary Rogers as clerk in a publicity move designed to attract men to his store. Rogers’ unsolved murder a year later became a pop-culture phenomenon known as “The Mystery of the Beautiful Cigar Girl.”

1840? 1843? Cincinnati cigar makers form union.

1840±  Connecticut tobacco was so profitable that it was planted in Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island and all over Connecticut. Although tobacco will grow nearly everywhere, it was soon discovered which areas produced the best leaf and production was discontinued elsewhere. Most tobacco was grown on small farms of ten acres or less. Methods of growing cigar tobacco have changed very little.

1840's  Only 309 people were employed in England tobacco manufacture at the start of the decade. British cigar industry, like that of the U.S. and Cuba, undergoes great expansion (though still much smaller than the previously named).

1840  English adulteration laws are revised, now permitting anything to be added to tobacco except the leaves of trees, plants and herbs. Manufacturers and tobacconists added sugar, honey, molasses, licorice and other ingredients in such great quantities (40% to 60% by weight) that some writers described British smoking tobacco as more confectionary than tobacco.

1840  US Government extends ten hour day to all federal employees.

1841  Wm. Boardman went into business at 128 Asylum St. in Hartford, CT, as a jobber of “teas, coffees, spices. tpbaccos, cigars, etc.”  In 1874, the company was named Wm. Boardman & Sons.

1841  Business communications between Europe and the U.S. improved thanks to development of regular mail service. Mail could go from New York or Boston to Vienna in a bit over two weeks, considered very fast.

1841  The Mercantile Agency established in Louisville, KY, as wholesalers of cigars and tobacco products. The company becomes successful, eventually establishing 245 branch offices.

1842  Traffic in Western tobacco (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky) down the Mississippi River to New Orleans necessitates building of warehouse in Louisville capable of handling 20,000 hogsheads. In 1842, 5,131 hogsheads averaging 1,300 pounds each, were handled. An estimated 15,000 total tobacco hogsheads came down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers this year.

1842  England: So much was lost in taxes thanks to retail tobacco now mostly sugar by weight that Parliament reversed the adulteration permit by passing The Pure Tobacco Act, highly opposed by the tobacco industry and its vendors. Tax officials were given wide powers to sample  tobacco and cigars at any time.  Cabbage leaf cigars were discovered.

1842  Germany: Cigar factory district of Hamburg, one of Europe’s largest cigar centers, burns down. Large numbers of experienced owners, managers and rollers move to the United States, Cuba, Brazil and Mexico during the next decade. Fire illus and map of burned area available in NCHM

1843 (“early 1840’s”) Small flood of experienced lithographers immigrate from Germany to the US and Cuba. Commercial color lithography begins to catch on in both countries. Color cigar and cigarette labels reportedly printed in Cuba two or three years before US. Evidence appears to bear that claim. See examples of early Cuban experiments with color labels in the NCM exhibit.

1843  The United States exports 4,095,000 cigars to St. Petersburg, Russia.
The sender and recipient are not identified in reports. What and why would be interesting to learn, as the U.S. rarely exported domestic cigars.

1843  Tobacco production in Canada remains unsuccessful despite Parliamentary tax advantages.

1843 Charles Rugg (later & Son) establishes cigar factory in Blairsville, PA  HAVANA TOBIES label

1843  Kibbe Brothers Co. founded in Springfield, MA, as manufacturers and wholesale dealers in “Confectionery in all its branches also Dealers in Cigars.” The company was incorporated in 1892. In 1906 the company was booming, with a huge 5 story factory on Harrison Ave., but no Kibbes were still involved.

1844  The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal published “Influence of Smoking in Promoting Defecation”

which advocated smoking half a cigar in the morning to get things moving.

1844  Cuba exports almost 2,000,000 cajatillas de cigarros (packs of cigarettes) which in those days typically contained 50, though other sizes were available as well. The same brand of cigarettes could be packed in different size (10, 13, 15, 20, 25, 26 etc.) depending on the size and blend of the cigarette. Philippine packs typically held 30.

1844  Illinois ships 500,000 pounds of tobacco. Had been growing and experimenting since before the Revolution. Approximately one-half of the U.S. tobacco crop is grown West of the Allegheny Mountains.

1844  Louisville, Kentucky, becomes home to two large tobacco warehouses and five stemmeries.

1844  Clarksville, Tennessee, warehouses handled 9,000 hogsheads (weighing 800# to 1,000# each) of Mississippi river tobacco traffic.

1844  An Ohio tobacconist’s ledger shows he bought 21 different shapes and blends of cigars from a handful of independent cigar rollers who worked in their own homes, turning in cigars once a week. Nelson Nichols turned in 2500 simple “half Spanish” a week, while Frank Bells  generally turned in less than 1,000 a week, but all were high grade Principes, Regalias, and Cubas. Nichols’ feat is prodigious no matter how poorly they may have been made. Bells’ output was average for a roller of very high grade cigars. The men who made large  perfect cigars out of highest grade tobacco were paid the most per/1,000.

1844  In London, Cheroots from the Philippines sell for 20% more than cigars from Havana.

1844  H. UPMANN founded by Herman and August Upmann; H probably is the abbreviation for Hermanos (brothers) tho other less logical claims are put forth. Company sold in 1922 to Londoners, who failed and resold in 1936 to Menendez, Garcia y Ca (who founded MONTECRISTO).  You can see early labels, boxes all periods, including  Upmann’s earliest labels in other exhibits.

1845  LA CORONA a new factory for an established brand?  Tho the company uses 1845 as their date of founding, I own a shipping manifest showing someone shipping cigars to the US from Cuba under the name PARTAGAS in 1837. Sold in 1882 then resold. In 1910 production was 40,000/per day.  American Cigar Co. moved most, not all, production to the US in 1933/34.  boxes before and after relocation, progressive for flap,

1845  PARTAGAS erects new factory building, still standing.  Partagas (possibly established as early as 1827 though the company uses 1845 as their date of origin). Brand sold in late 1890’s, eventually owned by Ramon Cifuentes Llano. photos, boxes, ads

1845  C. del PESO & CO. established in Havana, purveyor to H.M. the King of Spain. Brands in the 1930’s include FLOR DE TOMAS GUTIERREZ, FLOR DE JUAN LOPEZ, and PIERROT Have 25/5 T Gutierrez box from the 1840s or 1850s...perhaps the company’s first marca.

1845  Huntoon & Gordon open factory in Providence, RI, makers of OLD COON [7329horse]

1845  Mr. Henry Floto manufactured Cigars in a Barn in Berlin, Somerset CO., PA. His son, Theodore, was still in business in 1870.

1845  CT broadleaf tobacco becomes important in cigar trade, and will be used commercially for 150+ years.

1845  Cigar tobacco introduced into Onondaga County (around Syracuse) and elsewhere in NY. Within a decade the County was producing a half-million pounds of cigar filler a year.

1845  J.W. Fergusson & Sons begin printing in Richmond, VA, ultimately specializing in tobacco labels.

1845  Dare, Stockman & Co. on Commercial Street  begin importing Cuban cigars into London, England.

1845  Principal European ports handling tobacco were, in order, London (27,500,000 lbs), Amsterdam (26,000,000), Liverpool (17,000,000)  and Bremen-Hamburg (13,600,000).

1845  European prima ballerina FANNY ELSSLER performs in Cuba and has a cigar named after her. Earliest celebrity label in NCHM collection.

1845  The French government tobacco monopoly, SEITA, goes into the cigarette business, selling 6,000,000 the first year. French women are addicted, an affliction that remains to this day.  1844 print of French woman requesting cigar not cigarette

1845  Duke of Wellington decries amount of cigar smoking among military officers, requests base commanders to ban smoking in mess halls and to discourage it elsewhere.

1846  RAMON ALLONES brand registered;  Sold in 1911 to Europeans, and again in 1927 to

Ramon Cifuentes, owner of PARTAGAS.

1846  EL PRINCIPE DE GALES brand founded in Cuba.  Various, including 1st label  What relationship this brand has to PRINCE OF WALES brand, also from the 1840’s, is unclear.  1840’s label

1846±  First cigar maker establishes in the Tampa area. Plantation destroyed in hurricane of 1848. Rebuilds. Lasts for 20+ years.

1846  Sarony & Major lithography founded in NY City. Undergoes five name changes, ultimately becoming part of American Litho in 1892.

1846  J.M. McCord, New York cigar retailers, established.

1846  William S. Kimball & Co. founded in Rochester, NY. Maker of smoking and chewing tobacco and cigarettes. One of the founders of the tobacco trust.

1846  Frederick Curtis buys Blome’s Cigar Manufacturing and Tobacco Packaging Co. in Glastonbury, CT.

1846  The Eastern Counties Railway (England) establishes the first railroad smoking car.

1847  George S. Harris founds cigar label lithographic company in Philadelphia. Harris created more than 5,000 recorded cigar labels 1847-1892. Continued operation until closed by American Litho in 1900. My personal favorite printer.

1847  E.B. Estes & Sons begin making turned & locked corner wooden boxes (BN and SBN): Plants in New York, Paris, Melbourne, and London. “The largest establishment of the kind in the world.”

1847  R.M. Bishop Cigar Co. founded in Cincinnati as cigarmakers and dealers in leaf tobacco. Later assigned Fact. 48, 1st Dist. Ohio as ID. In 1893, James Parker was President.

1847  Breneiser, establishes business as maker and wholesaler of cigars, Reading PA. Conflicting dates give in ads and literature.   portrait box, letterhead, box, other

1847  Reading, PA, tobacconist Charles Maltzberger imported a wooden showfigure of Pocahontas carved by French woodcarver James leNoir and placed it inside his shop, where she smoked hr pipe continuously for more than 85 years. She does not appear to have survived the depression of the 1930s. 

1848  Russell & Harris, makers of “continental paper bags” for the cigar industry founded at the corner of Robinson and Greenwich Streets, in New York City. “Cigars and tobacco bags a specialty.”  Ad

1848  In Cuba, 232 factories turned out tobaccos (cigars) and 180 others made cigarros (cigarettes) and picadura (smoking tobacco), though very few offered the latter since scraps were much more valuable when used for cigarros (cigarettes).

1848  In Cuba, the Cabañas and the Gonzalez Carvajal families combined and reregistered Cabañas’s 50 year old cigar brand as Hija de Cabañas y Carvajal. which was soon shortened to H de Cabañas y Carvajal. Smokers continued to call is simply “Cabañas.”

1848  War in German principalities drives thousands of experienced cigar makers and printers to Cuba, Mexico, Brazil and the US., important for all four nation’s impending history.

1848  The predecessor of the long lived A.S. Valentine & Sons, makers of FLOR DE VALENTINE, TIRADOR and PAUL JONES cigars was established in Womelsdorf, PA, by 24 year old Adam Valentine. Company lasted 100+ years in the family for three generations. In 1905 located at 116-118 N. 7th St., Phila. Merged with Bennett, Sloan & Co.(New York) and Ibach & Rader (Newmanstown, PA) and Incorporated as A.S. Valentine & Sons in 1921. Sold out in 1954.  Boxes, paper, ads, info

1848  John I. Nicks becomes first tobacconist in Elmira, NY. 1860 Ad

1848  A.M. Clime founded in Terre Hill, PA, to make cigars exclusively for jobbers.

1848  Samuel S. Watts begins cigarmaking in Terre Hill, PA exclusively for jobbers.

1848  George and Robert McMillan found G. & R. McMillan Co., which becomes the oldest wholesale-retail firm in Detroit to continually operate under one name. Still run by the family, George III, in 1931.

1848  Cuba: SANCHO PANZA Cuban cigars originated by Emilio Ohmstedt.  Arbole upright

1848  Cuba: EL REY del MUNDO founded by Emilio Ohmstedt and/or Antonio Allones.  box

1848  T.P. and R. Goodbody start tobacco factory in Waterford, Ireland. Begin making cigars at later date.

1849  Principal ship-building ports of the US by tonnage: New York City, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia,  New Bedford, Baltimore and everyone else.

1849  The New York Times reports more money is spent for cigars each day in NYC than is spent for bread.

1849  H. Sutliff becomes a tobacconist in San Francisco to take advantage of the gold rush traffic. In 1937 the H. Sutliff Pipe Shop was still in business at 578 Market Street.

1849  George Schlegel, one of the US’s more important cigar label printers, founded in NYC (1849-1957). Numerous examples

1849  H. Conrad Deines, lithographic Co., founded in Germany.

1849  Frederich Bourquin introduces use of zinc plates to replace litho stones. Adopted by the printing industry very slowly.

1849  John Wesley Cardwell partnered with [?] Baldwin’s machine shop, founding J.W. Cardwell Machine Co. in Richmond, VA, as manufacturer of tobacco processing machines. Factory burned down by the Yankees in Civil War. Company still around in 2007 though in foreign ownership out of the country.

1849  Boston imports 2,000 hogsheads, 8,300 bales and 27,000 boxes and kegs of tobacco. Boston exports 1,500 hogsheads, 3,700 bales and 9,800 boxes and kegs of tobacco the same year.

1849  Erie canal important to trade, shipping 1,700,000 pounds of Western domestic cigar tobacco East from Buffalo to Albany, NYC, and towns along the canal (Syracuse, Rochester, Oneida, etc).

1849  Virginia establishes the auction system of selling loose leaf tobacco as opposed to the inspected hogshead system set up in 1730. This had little impact on cigars as cigar tobacco had been sold loose, in bales, and in the fields for a half century and almost never used either the hogshead or Southern auction systems.

1850  US annual cigar consumption is 19 per person. Stats like this are misleading because the number is much higher when you factor out children, most women and all non-smokers. Number of cigars per smoker probably closer to 75, and if only cigar smokers are counted, the figure may be twice that or more.

1850  Cigar tobacco production begins in Wisconsin.

1850  Sanford Elmore plants first CT tobacco seed in Chemung County, NY. Within five years 30 acres grew more than 34,000 pounds. By the Civil War, a quarter million pounds were harvested. For the next 70 years, the area known as one of NY state’s prime planting areas.

1850  Otto Eisenlohr established factory in Philadelphia. Long time maker of CINCO and HENRIETTA, brands which celebrated their centennial.  letterhead, ad showing 1st factory

1850  Henry Traisor, ultimately one of Boston’s most important cigar makers, opens his first factory. Maker of PIPPENS.   Boxes  This is a contested date. Company souces give both 1850 and 1852 as founding date.

1850  Five Fendrich brothers open a tobacco factory in Baltimore using Kentucky leaf to make plug.

1850  Cuba: ROMEO Y JULIETA by Inocencio Alvarez and Manin Garcia  (many conflicting dates are given by various authors, emphasizing the difficulty of research in Cuba where archives have been pillaged and sold on the open market: see 1873 and 1875)  Earliest label, other boxes

1850  New Calixto Lopez factory built in Havana.  Labels, ads

1850  U.S. Senator HENRY CLAY visits Cuba and has cigar named after him. Label, various boxes

1850  One half of total U.S. export is leaf tobacco for pipe smoking, snuff and chewing tobacco.

1850  The 1850 Brooklyn Census listed 408 cigar factories employing 2,950 men and women, rolling $35,000,000 worth of cigars a year.  Manhattan listed three times as many factories. Philadelphia had more.

1850  Havana, Cuba, is the largest, most cosmopolitan, cultured, city in North and South America.

A traveler described the city’s smell as a not unpleasant (just distinctive) mix of garlic, cigar smoke and the guts of butchered animals, since Cubans ate copious amounts of garlic, smoked incessantly and tossed offal in the streets for scavengers.

1850  A German nobleman established a cigarette factory in St. Petersburg to manufacture “Russian type” cigarettes made of expensive Turkish leaf. They came complete with a cotton wad filter. This is the type of cigarette British troops brought home to England after the Crimean war. Although Cuban and other cigarettes were smoked throughout Europe and the Middle East asx early as the 1830s, cigarettes were close to unknown in the United States before the War.

I’d like to quit reading and go back <home>.

1851  Frederich Heppenheimer and ? Hartmann start one of nation’s most important cigar label printers. The firm underwent 5 name variations between 1851 and 1892; ultimately absorbed into American Litho. Numerous examples

1851  Cuba: Date claimed for Jose Gener’s first tobacco farm in the Vuelta Abajo. He establishes HOYO DE MONTERREY in 1865, named after the small fertile valley in which he farmed. Various boxes

1851  Cuba: LA ESCEPCION  created by Jose Gener, Havana. Serpentine chest, other

1851  Cuba: Bock y Ca, Havana, puts bands on BOCK y Ca. cigars. Also reported as taking place in 1854 and 1857; Mara claims an astonishing and impossible (for Bock) 1831; A recent magazine writer puts date of Bock’s factory as 1864 and bands later. The joys of Cuban research.  Various boxes

1851  The Boston Almanac for 1851 lists only 10 cigar factories in that city, but like other compilations they did not count tiny family operations which prior to 1920 made up the vast majority of factories.

1851  British cigar companies joined those of the U.S. and Cuba exhibiting at the Great Paris Exposition.

1852  H. Traiser cigar factory founded in Boston. Best known for PIPPENS & HARVARD. Brands made for 100+ years. Have 5 different PIPPINS, including foil, tin, 100/10, 2 50/13, other ephemera.

1852  Joseph Whitcomb & Co. established on 258 Main Street "near the depot" in Springfield Mass. by Joseph Whitcomb and later operated by [sons?] S.A. and H.L. Whitcomb as wholesale and retail dealers in foreign and domestic tobacco, snuff, plug tobacco, pipes and imported and Key West cigars. They also manufactured USA and WINTHROP cigars as well as “every description of” custom brands. 1875 billhead

1852  Augustus Pollack, stogie maker, begins business in West Virginia. Factory illus. Boxes

1852  S.A. Whitcomb and H.L. Whitcomb established cigar factory in Springfield, MA. Expands into full line tobacco product wholesaler. Becomes Joseph Whitcomb & Co (in business in 1905)

1852  LORD BYRON cigars began being made in Cuba, the first brand known to have been packed and shipped overseas in cardboard drums holding 50 cigars. The top and bottom of the boxes were sewn together with waxed thread.  Cardboard drum, 50s box and modern porcelain jar.

1852  Christian Peper Tobacco Company, long time maker of pipe tobacco blends including FIFTH AVENUE MIXTURE, established in St. Louis. Still around in 1946.

1852  H.H. Mehlhop establishes cigar factory and distributorship in Dubuque, Iowa. Lasts 75± years.

1852  EL PRINCIPE DE GALES brand created by Ybor in Havana. brand’s early labels are on exhibit. Another Cuban brand THE PRINCE OF WALES was also made at this same time. Who copied whom? A label from the latter can be seen <here>.  Have labels, boxes, ads, statue-lighter

1852  Luis Susini registers the cigarette brand LA HONRADEZ in Havana. The story of this brand and it’s huge influence on packaging and marketing history is told in the Cuban Gallery of the Museum.

1853  Mayrisch Bros & Co., cigar makers and importers, at the corner of Battery and Clay in San Francisco, claim to be the first cigar factory on the West Coast. Unsubstantiated and unlikely.  letterhead

1853  Ohio cigar tobacco production 1,600,000 pounds. By the Civil War, eight years later, production was ten times that.

1853  L.B. Hass & Co. founded in Hartford, CT, as a packer of all types of Connecticut leaf tobacco. Still in business 100 years later.

1853  The May-Flower Tobacco Works of John J. Bagley is opened.

1853  A. Hoen & Co. Litho formed in Baltimore from Weber Litho. Hoen became the largest printer of smoking and chewing tobacco crate and caddy labels in the world.  Numerous Caddy labels

1853  Moser Cigar and Paper Box Co. founded in St. Louis.   illus letter

1853  Techno-geek Louis Susini imports German cigarette machine into Cuba. Suisini soon exports one of world’s most expensive and desirable cigarettes (tho most are handmade). Widely counterfeited. Originator of collectible labels. Visit his factory <here>. See his labels <here>..

1853  British medical journal LANCET tests tobacco, snuff, cigars and cheroots for adulteration. Cigars were purchased from 58 cigar stores. All but three samples were pure. One had hay for filler, another was brown paper wrapper and hay filler. The third had “sweepings, probably of the warehouse. It contained dust, dirt, fragments of mortar, pieces of apple-paring, and much broken and refuse tobacco.” Twelve cheroot samples were tested for opium, a common belief, and found clean.

1853  (published 1859) Lieutenant John Page wrote of universal cigar smoking in Paraguay, describing cigars being offered in every household, rich or poor. He said all men, women and children including refined young girls smoked. Paraguayan tobacco wouldn’t hurt children they claimed.

1853-1856  Fifty-five thousand French and British troops involved in the Crimean war learned to smoke cigarettes made from local tobacco from their Turkish allies. When they return home, popularity of Turkish “Oriental” tobacco booms.

1854  Ruhe Bros. Co. founded to make cigars in Allentown, PA.  card , box MR. THOMAS

1854  Nicholas Kuhnen goes into the cigar making business in Davenport Iowa, creator of PAPPOOSE, a brand that lasted a century.  Have various styles of box over the years

1854  John Berger goes into the tobacco packing business in Ohio. By 1930 his son is headquartered in Cincinnati at 315 Main St. and operating warehouses in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Cuba.

1854  Roger Fenton, the first official war photographer, becomes the first known to have taken a picture of a man lighting a cigarette. Crimea 1854 or 55. The cigarette was made of “Oriental” (Turkish) tobacco and rolled in newspaper.

1855  Francis Fendrich & Brothers opens its doors as a retail and wholesale firm in Evansville, Indiana. Its first cigar brand, THE FIVE BROTHERS, was made for them in Columbia, Pennsylvania. Youngest brother Herrmann Fendrich takes over the company in late 1870s when 3 older brothers retire. Firm renamed Herrmann Fendrich, successor to Fendrich Brothers.

1855  Dohan & Taitt, importers of Havana and packers of domestic leaf open in Philadelphia. J.T. and W.H. Dohan were on the letterhead for 1905, at 107 Arch St..

1855  John Morris plants first tobacco crop in Bucks County, PA, on Duck Island. First crops were distinctive and such good quality it brought profit of $500 an acre encouraged plantings in Perkasie, Morrisville, Tullytown, Falsington and throughout Richland township. Subsequent plantings brought 15¢ to 35¢ per pound. Later dropped as low as 4¢. Tobacco planting has always been risky. DUCK ISLAND box

1855  John Fendrich established cigar factory in Columbia, PA. By 1897, Son William was in charge and ran what was then called the Gem Cigar Factory, as well as a leaf dealership. Box, ads, fact. illus.

1855  A.A. Guile opens cigar factory at 9 Seneca St., Geneva, NY.

1855  Austin, Nichols & Company founded as a wholesale grocer specializing in tea, coffee and booze (including WILD TURKEY bourbon, which it manufactured). Created and distributed many brands of cigars. Changed name to Pernod Ricard USA in 2001.

1855  Alex Fries & Bro, “the leading manufacturers” of non-evaporating flavors and sweeteners for cigars, cigarettes, smoking tobacco and chewing tobacco is founded in Cincinnati. Offices in New York. Ads.

1855  Jacob Krohn  is making cigars in Ohio.   DUTY PAID box

1855  Cigar tobacco production begins in Chemung County, NY, called the “Big Flats.”

1855  John Lundstrum, a Swede, created a revolution for smokers by inventing the safety match. The British company, Bryant and May immediately purchased the rights and became one of the world’s largest purveyors of matches.  Have various Bryant and May boxes and book on the Company.

1850's  More than 1,000 cigar factories are in operation in Cuba, the most that will exist in any decade.

Some Cuban cigars made for the export market are banded. No EXACT information by whom when.

1856  Captain Abishai Slade of Caswell County, NC, produces the first bright yellow tobacco, ultimately revolutionizing the smoking tobacco and cigarette industries.

1856  Famous pipe tobacco manufacturer John Middleton founded.

1856  A.W. Mentzer & Sons establishes a cigar factory in Ephrata, PA to make LA OLCA, GENERAL ROLLER, LA PALANTINA, and LOG CABIN.

1856  Famous Vicente Ybor begins making EL PRINCIPE DE GALES in Havana.

PRINCE OF WALES cigars were from another factory. Ybor’s signature is seen on A LO FIGARO, an apparant knock-off of the world known FIGARO.  Bor Copying anoth company”s succesful name & label was

1857  US Government enacts tariff aimed at imported (mostly Cuban) tobacco and cigars. Before the tariff goes into effect more Cuban cigars are imported than in any year before or since. This Act had serious  consequences for the Cuban cigar industry and led to Cuban manufacturers moving to Key West, New Orleans and New York.

1857  A never-again-equalled 360,000,000 Cuban cigars were shipped to the U.S.  To put the 360 million in “cigar perspective” the U.S. also imported an equal number of cigars from the Netherlands and German principalities, and rolled four times that many cigars domestically. A century later, in a population many times greater, the U.S. imported 1/9 that many Cuban cigars, a mere 40,000,000.

1857  Iwan Ries opens his still-in-business tobacconist shop in Chicago.

1857  S. Hernsheim & Bro founded LA BELLE CREOLE cigar factory in New Orleans  parade trade card, booklet, illus of factory, LA BELLE CREOLE

1857  M. Stachelberg & Co., maker of clear Havanas, established.

1857  Hart & Murphy, founded St. Paul, Minnesota, makers of JUDGE HARLAN among others.

1857  D. Bing, maker of BINGATO clear Havana cigars is established.

1857  John C. Partridge & Co. founded in Chicago, one of the largest and oldest distributors in Chicago. Located at 87 Randolph St., but moved many times as it expanded.

1857  E. Hoffman Co. established in Chicago as tobacco wholesaler--retailer.

1857  Charles Lawrence & Co established in Boston as commission merchants, importers and wholesale dealers in fruit and cigars;  Two brands listed on their 1900 letterhead : GLENWOOD 10¢ and LAWRENCE’S 103 at 5¢.

1857  Only 5 experienced carvers of ship figureheads were still working in New York City. After the war, demand for cigar store Indians and circus show figures would rise substantially and the trade would prosper for nearly half a century.

1857  Modern toilet paper invented; replaces FARMER’S ALMANAC in homes and outhouses.

1857  Cigarette factory established by Robert Peacock Gloag in Walworth, London. Sold cigarettes five-for-a-penny. The following year Nicolas Contoupoulis opened the second cigarette factory. in 1861, another Greek, Theodoriti opened the third, followed by Marcovitch in 1863. The latter is the only one whose brands were still sold a century later.

1858  The Mueller & Son Company, box manufacturer, established in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1858  Gumpert Bros, start cigar retail operation in Philadelphia. picture and envelope drawings.

1858  H. Seamon, stogie makers, founded in Wheeling WV.  Cdb drum

1858  Robert Capadura Brown, tobacco distributor, created CAPADURA brand cigars, possibly this year, tho brand not patented until 1876.  Have box

1858  H. Jacobs founded a cigar factory in Canada, later famous as makers of STONEWALL JACKSON cigars.  trade ad and box

1858  Gieske & Niemann, dealers, packers and exporters of Maryland and other leaf tobacco, established in Baltimore. Still in business in 1946.

1858  Custom bands were put on cigars given at NYC banquet honoring men who laid Atlantic cable. Those bands now have mythic status among collectors. Valuable if you could find one. I’d like the box.

1858  First city-wide cigar maker’s trade union established in St. Louis.

1858  LA CAROLINA established in Cuba, possibly at Animas 100 & 102, their 1898 location.  box 1875

1858  Soldiers returning to England from the Crimean war introduce cigarettes made with Turkish strains of small leaf tobacco. This tobacco was especially adopted in Russia, where cardboard mouthpieces and cotton filters were soon added.

1858  Robert Peacock Gloag became the “father of the British cigarette industry,” founding what his ads called “the oldest and the original” Turkish tobacco and cigarette factories in England. His ads promoted his “Russian-made Latakia dust cigarettes wrapped in yellow tissue paper.”

1859  US Government offers Spain $30,000,000 for Cuba. Turned down. Political cartoon

1859  Pennsylvania’s cigar leaf production will hold relatively steady for next 20 years.

1859±  Jose Villavicencio operated a cigar factory at 52 Figura (Havana). He used the trademarks LA FOR DE MI VEGA, MERCEDES and MONTE CRISTO.  

1859  102,000,000 Cuban cigars imported into the U.S. (about 40% of Cuban production). Approximately 800 Cuban export brands existed (a small fraction of the number of cigar brands produced in the U.S.).

1859  Cuba exported almost 9,000,000 packages of cigarettes, containing an average 50 smokes each. Very few went to the U.S., those almost exclusively to Cuban immigrants in Key West and New Orleans. Cuban cigarettes were like no other; they became a worldwide phenomenon except in the U.S. European counterfeiting of Cuban brands was on the rise.

1860  US annual cigar consumption rises to 26 per person.

1860  Around 1,500 cigar factories in US employ 8,000 people. Another source says 2,000 factories and 25.000 people. Women made up 9% of the workforce. Children weren’t counted. They worked, they just weren’t always well counted. Thirty years later, all numbers except the last, would have grown by 10X or more.

1860  Machinery for making cigars advertised in popular art magazine. Have ad

1860's  British cigar makers widely adopt the cigar mould. Some reports say it was invented there.

1860's  Difficulty in identifying a cigar once out of the box, British cigar makers began pasting various shapes and colors of stickers called 'tickets' on cigars. Customer complaints about damaged wrapper led to the adoption of paper 'rings' called bands today.

1860  Francis Asbury starts NYC business making fancy glass cigar boxes and signs. Have ad

1860  As much cigar leaf grown in Ohio (almost 5 million pounds) as in Pennsylvania and New England. 

1860  Cincinnati was 4th leading cigar producing city, behind Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore.

1860  In Chicago, still the wild west, more than 224 cigar factories are in operation.

1860  John G. Root establishes  factory in Reamstown, PA. Makes JOHN BROWN cigars with the slogan “As his soul goes marching on.”

1860?  H. & J. Breitwieser (Henry & John) founded as cigarmakers in Buffalo. envelope, boxes

1860  Lewis Osterweis & Sons founded in  New Haven, CT. Lasts until 1954.

1860  Theobald & Oppenheimer founded in Philadelphia.

1860  Rohde & Co. established as cigar maker at 55 West Canal, Cincinnati. Still operating in 1930 at 114 East 2nd.   CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

1860  Gromanes & Ullrich established in Chicago as importers of Havana cigars and tobacco and dealers in clear Havanas and domestic cigars.

1860  Schmidt & Storm (forerunner of Straiton & Storm 1863) founded in NYC. Box for their brand

CUCKOO claims 1861

1860  Pedro Murias creates LA MERIDIANA in Havana.

1860 Bottomly & Co. begin cigar manufacture in Halifax, England.

1860  Wages for carpenters and masons was 65¢ a day, sunrise to sunset.

1860  The TOBACCO TRADE BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION established in London, England, “for the relief of aged and necessitous members of the trade, their widows and orphans.”

1860  The U.S. imports 300,000,000 cigars from the city of Bremen. Bremen imported 42,000 pounds of low grade tobacco from the U.S.

1861-1865  The US Civil War (aka: the war between the states) had a major impact on many aspects of American life and business especially the new taxes and all the men and rules it took to enforce the.

1861  David Swisher receives a small Newark Ohio cigar factory as part of debt payment. The beginning of a huge cigar business, still in operation today in Florida. Numerous examples of boxes, etc.

1861  Weideman Co. starts in the cigar distribution business in Detroit.

1861  Only 38 of the once more than 200 cigarette factories remained in Havana, shut down because of advertising and wrapper-premiums given away by major makers Susini, Figaro, and others. 1350 workers were employed in cigarette factories and another 950 rolled them on a piece-rate basis in prison, jail, and army barracks. More than 300,000 packs of Cuban cigarettes were produced daily.

1861  William K. Gresh opens his first cigar factory in Centre Point, PA.

1861  Banner Tobacco Co., maker of BANNER chewing tobacco, starts production in Detroit.

1861  Charles H. Blake becomes a wholesale jobber offering "small wares, fancy goods, stationery & Cigars" in Centre Harbor, NH. 

1861  Joseph Pattreiouex begins wholesale mixing of tobacco blends in Manchester, England.

1861  A. Jimenez & Sons established on Fenchurch Street in London, England, as importers of Cuban cigars, Mexican cigars, European cigars, and cigarettes from around the world. Sole importers of LA COSMOPOLITANA from Havana.

1862  US Government imposes 5 different excise taxes on cigars based on their value. Cigars valued between $5 and $10 per 1,000 were taxed $2.  Cigars valued at more than $20 per 1,000 paid $3.50 per 1,000. Laws were contradictory and confusing. Meets with widespread, near universal, evasion. For more information visit the Cigar Tax Wars exhibit.

1862  R.W. Tansill, maker of TANSILL’S PUNCH, goes into business in Chicago. By 1883 has offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Key West. Full box, letterhead, more

1862  J.F. McMahon goes into business as wholesaler of cigars, cigarettes, tobacco and smokers’ articles, at 212 Main Street, Peoria, Illinois.  Still in Business in 1932. billhead

1862  C.L. Hulett began business in Troy, NY, as a wholesaler of cigars, manufactured tobacco and leaf. Still in operation in 1911. 

1862  W.S. Mathews & Sons established in Paducah, KY, and manufacturers and exporters of snuff, twist, and plug smoking and chewing tobacco. Still around in 1946.

1862  F.A. Appel awarded a medal at the Great Exhibition for varnished metal plates decorated by means of a transfer printing process.

1862  J.L. Van Gelder begins making cigars at St. Mary Axe, London, England.

1862 Josef Huppmann establishes cigarette factory in Dresden, employing one cutter and six female rollers.

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