http://www.ourtownebethlehem.com/
Tobacco and Cigars
November 2019
November 2019
 |
| Search on Google Images for "cigar vintage daguerreotype" and you find find plenty of 19th century men and their cigars. This gentleman came from the Flickr group Vintage People with Dogs. |
Tobacco and Cigars. What a strange topic I know. Here’s how
it came up. Not too long ago while talking about the hamlet of Slingerlands, I
used the quote below that describes the village in 1886.
“The village contains 44 dwellings, 50
families, 230 inhabitants; a commodious brick school-house and M.E. Church,
printing establishment, hotel, marble and monumental works, store, 2 blacksmith
shops, wheel wright and paint shop, shoe shop, cigar manufactory, R.R. station
and several fine residences….Being near the city, it affords many conveniences
to those who seek for rural pleasure and the quiet of home life.”
Very
nice right? But then, someone asked, “Where was the cigar manufactory?” I had
no idea, but my curiosity was piqued. The question also brought to mind the ad
for Pigaback Cigars with its cute picture of a pig with four little piglets on
its back. The image was used by Dearstyne Brothers of Albany in the early 1900s
and catches my eye every time I am researching in the Altamont Enterprise.
The question also reminded me that tobacco was a very big deal in the early
colonial times in what was to become Bethlehem.
Tobacco
use has a long history with the native peoples of the Americas. European
explorers of the 1500s encountered it and brought the practice of smoking
tobacco, and the seeds to grow it, back to their home countries. It is said Sir
Walter Raleigh introduced smoking tobacco in pipes to England’s elite. Tobacco
use spread quickly fueled by belief in its curative powers and it became
entrenched in the American and European economies.
You
might have heard of Albert Andriessen Bradt, the Norwegian? Often recounted is the
story that he was the early settler for whom the Normans Kill was named. Bradt
signed a contract in August 1636 with Killian Van Rensselaer to leave
Amsterdam, travel to Rensselaerswyck and start a sawmill venture with two
others. Van Rensselaer described the 29-year-old Bradt as a tobacco planter
meaning he probably managed one of the tobacco plantations in Holland. There
were tobacco farms there as early as 1616.
There
is much documentary evidence of tobacco farming in general and Albert Bradt in particular
in what was to become Bethlehem, especially in the correspondence of Killian
Van Rensselaer. For example, in a letter dated May 10, 1638, Van Rensselaer
writes Bradt, “This will serve to advise you that I duly received your letter
in which you wrote that the tobacco looked fine…” The following May, Van
Rensselaer writes to Bradt, “Now as to the tobacco which you sent me, it is a
great loss to yourself and to me that the tobacco in these barrels was so poor
and thin of leaf that it could not stand being rolled, which must be due to
your having left too many leaves on the plants; furthermore the weight was
short.” It must be noted that Bradt engaged in a number of activities in order to
make a living in Rensselaerswyck including trading in furs, cattle raising, grain
farming and sawmilling. By 1646, Bradt had left the tobacco farm to concentrate
on his other money-making ventures.
Northern
tobacco soon fell out of favor as the supremacy of Virginia tobacco grew. I did
find evidence of one Bethlehem farmer raising tobacco in the Agricultural
Schedule of the 1880 Census. Usher Otman, on his 34 improved acres, amidst the
many bushels of corn, oats, rye, wheat and potatoes, produced 30 pounds of
tobacco. He is the only one in 39 pages of records, reflecting approximately 200
farmers.
And what
about that cigar manufactory in Slingerlands? It was owned by Samuel Dickson. Dickson
turns up as early as the 1870 U.S. Census where he is listed as a “segar
maker.” At that time, he lived with his uncle and aunt, Alexander and Elizabeth
Dickson McGilva. He was still making, and one assumes selling, cigars in the
1880 census and by the 1892 NY census he is a listed as a merchant. The 1900 census
has him as a grocer. All this time he was living in Slingerlands with members
of the McGilva side of his family. As a side note, Dickson was active in
Republican politics, winning election as Collector in 1872 on a ticket topped
by Albertus Becker for Supervisor.
Dickson
remained single all of his life, passing away in 1900 at about age 68. He is
buried next to his aunt and uncle at the New Scotland Presbyterian Church
Cemetery. His cousin Elizabeth McGilva
was in charge of settling his estate, and her legal notice in the Altamont
Enterprise is fascinating. In searching for heirs and interested parties, the
notice begins with a listing of a whole host of people from the Dickson family
of Cigarville, Onondaga County, New York.
While I
don’t know how Dickson landed in Bethlehem or how he learned his trade as a
cigar maker, a large part of his extended family was located in a village so
famous for its tobacco product that they called the place Cigarville. One
newspaper clipping headlined “Tobacco Farming Lost Onondaga County Calling”
describes Cigarville as one of the “liveliest settlements in Onondaga’s tobacco
land.” It continues, “a thriving little community which derived its name from
its ranking industry, the manufacture of cigars from tobacco cultivated in the
surrounding region. In its hey-day the Cigarville factory employed between 75 and
100 men, described as a rowdy, rollicking, quick tempered lot.” With the
decline of the industry around 1900, the hamlet of Cigarville became Clay
Station.
I don’t
imagine Dickson’s operation in Slingerlands was on the scale of the Cigarville
factory. He probably had a small business hand rolling cigars and selling them
locally. Cigar making in general ranged from large manufacturers, there were
several in Albany, to smaller operations such as Dickson’s. One 1886 book
reports “The smokers of cigars and chewers of tobacco are as numerous in Albany
as elsewhere. Most of the wholesale dealers and manufactures are also engaged
in the retail trade… all of the retail stores manufacture to some degree…there
are over one hundred firms in engaged in this branch of trade in Albany.” Elsewhere
in the book, the writer notes that the Cigar Makers Union was organized in
Albany 1879 and included between three and four hundred members.
This
exploration of tobacco and cigars does not even begin to look at the history of
pipe smoking and cigarettes, or the health consequences we are familiar with
today. While I am not at all nostalgic for the bad old days of widespread cigarette
use, the smell of cigar smoke does bring back fond memories of my dad. And
historically, it is interesting to wonder about the roots of a wide scale
industry that is still impacting life today. If you’d like to read further, check out the book
Tobacco How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Iain Gately.
 |
| Cooke & Nelson’s cigar and soda store can be
seen in this snapshot taken September 11, 1924. The building was at the Four
Corners in Delmar where the Swifty’s parking lot is today. Cooke & Nelson
advertised their confections, smoker’s articles, magazines and periodicals as
well as Syra-Cord tires and tubes for automobiles. |
 |
| Another handsome cigar smoking gent from Google Images. |
