Tobacco Documents Online

A "tobago," from which tobacco in- herited its name. twt on1Y inipolite but shortsighted, for there was gold to be made ft•otn good tobacco. Not (;olutnlius hut members of his party later dis- covered in Cuba the true use of the leaf. There they saw Indians smoking it in pipes, sniffrtg its incen;e through the hollow, Y-shaped tobagos that wonld give the herb its name, takinb it as snufl•, ~ c in~; it. twistino; it into cigars, and wrappittr it in corn husks to make a sort of cigarette. Roderibo de Jerez, one of Coluntlnts's sailors, is credited with being the first white tnan to appreciate tobacco. Jerez took tobacco with hitu back to Spain and was the first to light up and pufl in Europe. Frightened tow•nstnen, seeinb smoke pourinb from his niouth attd nose, called the police. The ftunes smelled cnuch better than brimstone, but this sailor was smokin; like the devil, so the Inquisition arrested and imprisoned him fot• a titue. However, tobacco had been -iven its start, and its use spread across the C:ontinent and tht•ouahout tile ~%ocld. Spaniards cotumenced cultivatin~; the Indian weed widely in their .atnerican pos5essions, and English settlers in Vit•ginia, finditi~; the natives ~ro~~-ing it there. followed suit. Our two red inen of the trademark obviously (telong to a Vir-inia tribe, and they are 5y-tubols of the Old Dominion's great role in tobacco culture. Perhaps they are relatives of the beautiful Indian princesa, Pocaliontas. who married John Rolfe of JanteStown. whose experituettts i!• growing ; seeds of the Spauish plattt. mildet• and finer flavored than the local product. we re of vast impor- 9 tanc•e and helped save the strugglin- set- tlentent. Just -IuCh a t•harmiur ntaiden . Pucahontas is pictured in the early as Lorillard lithograph in full color on pabe 44. 5he is appropriate' • iaking delivet•v of tobacco lea~es ft•otu a white angel. since tobacco was believed to be the gift of the Great Spirit. In anothet• Lorillat•d litho. A-Iinnehaha. Hiawatha", s«<eetheat•l. appears arainsl a bacl:- ,0;t•ound of a foamin,o; cascade of lau~;hin, ; water to advertise a fine cut brand named after her. From Vir~inia cante the tobacco which that voun- Frenclt itnnti~eant, Pierre Lorillard. stocked wlten he opened his tobacco Intsine„ in New York town ort the High Road to I3oston at (:hatham Street, now Park Row, in 1760. Sotue of it mav have come froni the plantation of George Wasktington who had shipped fiftv ho~;sheads to Englaud just the year before. Pierre was only eighteen. lntt lie knew good tobacco and how to prepare and sell it. It catne to hirn in puddin~;s. with the cured leaves pressed and wrapped in linen covers and

bound with twine like a pudding ready for steaming. One such pudding was hought by the Lorillard Company as a relic in 1945 and it came high, as genuine antiques do-tobacco at $20 a pound. From puddings Pierre manni- factured both pipe tohacco and snuff. Though Pierre Lorillard saw Iudi- ans on the streets of New York, they were northern red men, probably of the Iroquois Nation. It was when his sons, Peter and George, inherited the busi- ness that the house's Indian interest was carried back to old Virginia. On May 27, 1789, they published the earliest known American advertisement of tohacco-one of the first Lorillard "firsts." It shows a tribesman smoking a long clay pipe while he leans against a hogs- head marked "Best Virginia"' and recommends Lorillard products ranging from cut tol~acco, plug, and snuff to ladies' twist. All are stated to Le -sold reasonaLle," and a money-back-if- not-satisfied guarantee is offered, surely one of the first in American business. That hogshead and others like it, packed with best Virainia, had literally rolled a good deal of the way to the Lorillards in'_Vew York. After the leaf had been picked. stemmed. and ctu•ed, it was prized-pressed tightly hy levers- into the hogsheads. Headed, they were rolled to the road. and spikes driven into the heads. Shafts were attached to the spikes" a box fastened to the shafts, and horses hitched up in tandem. A driver mounted the rear horse, clucked to his team, and off the hogshead rolled on its own staves. Avoiding fording streams, which would damage the leaf and cause it to he classed as "ducked," he drove i t L d h h k hogsheads were rolled aboard ship and finally rolled ashore in New York. o a.r ver arge or a port oc ere t w e Indians again became Lorillard allies when skilled American craftsmen" artists who carved figureheads for ships. turned their hands to woodeu Indians. Big as life and bigger, or in miniature, they were painted in vivid colors. Warriors and maidens, they offered customers tobacco leaves or bundles of cigars with the same confidence of quality shown by Lorillard dealers in front of whose shops they stood. One heroic figure in Chicago. niodeled after an Iroquois chieftain and dubbed Big Chief A7e Smoke 'Em. 10

was so highly admired by members of his tribe that they paid regular visits to venerate him as their totem. While living Indians retreated west- ward, their wooden images made a stand in the white man's cities and towns, but, they, too, faced battles. Drays or handtrucks mowed some of them down. Others not chained to the storefront were carried off into captiv- ity. Some were burned at the stake, so to speak, in coal shortages. Citizens who had imbibed too freely either were seized by the spirit of Indian- fighting forebears and ferociously at- tacked a wooden red man, or draped themselves fondly on his shoulders to tell him troubles that had bored bar- tenders. The deadly aim of air rifles or slingshots in the hands of small boys caused many a wooden redskin to bite the dust or at least to rock on their pedestals. At last their stands were equipped with wheels, and they were trundled inside for the night, but even so they were doomed and began to dis- appear in the 1890s, finding safety only in museums or private collections. But the Lorillard Indians of the trademark, engraved on all the Company's stationery, deservingly survive to this day as the symbol of an old and honored firm.

Though the crew of Columbus had found Indians using tobacco in every form we know today, it was the pipe that led the march of the leaf around the world. Sliced, shredded, or crumbled, tobacco was smoked in pipes of wood, stone, bone, metal, and other substances, often wondrously shaped and carved and colored. Pipe, snuff, chewing tobacco, cigar and the cigarette-these mark suc- cessive eras in American history and in the fortunes of the house of Lorillard whose products met the popular taste of the time. One period overlaps another, and every use of tobacco has its devotees now as it had in 1492. But each enjoyed its own heyday, and the pipe's was our great age of exploration and settlement. Sir Walter Raleigh learned to smoke a pipe when the expedition he dispatched to Virginia brought back tobacco to England. By legend, he was puffing clouds from a pipe when, as the story goes, his English servant poured a pitcher of water or beer over him, thinking he was on fire. It is said Raleigh once persuaded Queen Elizabeth to try a silver pipe. However, many other smokers, male and female, enjoyed a pipe of silver or clay such as the yard- long churchwardens, so called because their length and dignity seemed to suit them to church officials. Pipe-smoking rapidly grew popular, though for a time it remained a rich man's pleasure, with tobacco worth its weight in silver. Tobacconists balanced it in their counter scales against silver shillings, and its cost would rate at about $3 an ounce today. Mid - seventeenth centurp ladies and gentlemen: _smoked pipes of. all sizes; .' from long' church- wardens :. to._ nose=-- warmers; . and of. m a n y materials_; from clay ta silver . _

Over in Anierica where the leaf was gi•own it was not So costly, but tobacco money was issued: silver coins staiuped with pipes and tobacco pud- dings. Even in Virginia tobacco was dubbed the golden weed, and it was worth its weight in wives. In 1619 a shipload of English gii•ls, "ninety a~;reeahle persons, yotuig and incor- rupt," reached Janiestowu. and eaaer bachelors paid 120 potuids of tobacco as the marriage fee for a bride. A second cargo the following year, "sixty maids of virtuous education, young and handsouie," caule higher at 150 pounds per helpmate and companion of joys and sorrows. Virginia husbands lit up their pipes. So did the Puritans of New England in spite of the frowns of ministers and magistrates, and so did the Pennsyl- vania Quakers regardless of William Penn's disapproval. In New York, Pierre Lorillard dealt in pipe tobacco, and his mixtures filled the church- warden pipes that smokers took from Me tavern racka, and also short clays, fittinaly termed "nose-warmers." 13 Wives for the settlers of Jamestown. Would-be-husbands paid 120 (later 150) pounds of Virginia tobacco as 'a marriage fee.for a bride. - _ - -_. : .. _...... -- As the pipe went west with American frontiersmen, Peter and George Lorillard, sons of the founder, hit upon a brilliant idea. They had broad- sides printed. listing all their products. and sent them out to every postmaster

:.....~~. WHOlzswzZ SRZ"ii - OT DIrFEDEYT !<INDf or . J& RM "MADvas .MANf1RdCTpRED A.ND SOED BY PF.TER &,GEORG E LOItIL.I;AR.D, No. 42 CHATHAM-STBEET: " ~t111-'~OCIt. pint quality Ataccoboy ,,. ,-. 90 cents per lb: or 22 tents per bottlC SEcond do. -. do. 28. . do 30 do. - Tbird 'do..,- do. ; .. 28 do. 19 - . do. Tuberose, a Coat'se;Snu(f , . -b0' . - do. 5o' da, No. 20; acoarse Itavourel do.; ,, 50 do. p do: ,. Coatsc French Rappee do. .. .• 30 do. 900 do• , Finh Rappco 2a" - do. do,. Common do•. :. 2o do 1. do. Bourboo a Coatse do ~ .`50 d ,.o ,. strasbu'rgh . . • so 2a so du: ' Saint Dmare . . . '50 do. - idalteso - a v iS do« - Sicily .do.': YBLLOW. SNUFF.. FinE ~uality Scotch, in bladders ..18 cents' per lb. or 19`ccnts per bottlP - "SOeond do. - do. or Half Toast I6' do.' ;. ". 19. . do. Third do. :- do: or High Toast •.-15 do. IS _ do. Fourth do. Common . : 12 do. It ,, do. Irish High Toast, stch as. i's manufactuted by Lundy Foot & Co. Dubliu 40 do. ~.CUT AND .TfiVIST TOBACCO. Fint qualtty tq ainalt papers :` 22 cents'por dozen, or 20 cents per lb.' Second do do 20 do 18 do.. . ; 'Third do. do; 18 do. . 16 do. Smotiing, in puund papg!s T . do. L1o." targepapen R 40 centq pet dozen , f adies' 1'wigt, amalt rolls in Iregs RS `' da ' Ppund roltr in Iregs of 100 ibr 16 do ito_ Ila apd trw,ietfront 8 tq 101bs I8 ,du m 10" Dish Segar3 , : frotc ~5 dolYaia per 1000' R dd Kdefaob do:" ._ : ` - 3 do. do. . ,- Common d,t 2 _ ' -do. ^do , . Spanish Cut. 90 ceuts per lb. TermE'Wr'Casb, if a bill amounts to 530, 2 per ceott discount. . if g bill amounts to 50, 4 do.-do - if a bill emounts to IoO, S.' do. ' do. . N. B`'l'ht S'alf'lioast aand Eflgli Toast Saotcti Snuff aFe ca1culated to suit . thbac wha tira aCcustomed to Ihe useof Philadelpbta Snuff -ire rell it at neariy ,, fua45ost . .. : p~ Tha lowest price Cutrfobacdowarraqted as good as any manufactiircd, oxccpt tbc aorE ita sell ata higher price. ... eBWARE. OF . mFtlMZ=01r. Sererol persons in diE'erent parts of the United States, are in tha disbono.rable practice af using a label in Imitation ofouts, which we have used upwards of t,cer'j•f.ue years, and which can be for noottierpurpose than to deceive. Many are also in the habit ofpurchasingour genuine Maccoboy, (as we are tbe only inventors of that kind of Snufl,) and mising it eith SnuA'of their manufacture. The only motive we have in making thfs publication, is to caution our customers against deception in the purchase of Snuff and Tobacco. We hav. three diR'ercnt kinds of Maccoboy, and also, three kinds of Scotch Snuff in Bladders, and sold as low as any o8ered. Direct mail advertising by Peter and George Lorillard, 1830. This broadside, sent to post- masters, helped achieve "national" distribution for a product via United States post-ofT'ices.

in the United States. They were well aware that the post office was a center of community life, that citizens frequently dropped in for their mail, and that the postmaster was an important fellow who made friends and influenced people. Would the distributors of letters for Uncle Sam also handle Lorillard tohacco? N,tndreds of them would and did with pleasure and profit. Here was a stroke of genius in American commerce; in effect, a forerunner of direct mail advertising and a sort of mail-order business. Here also was _ the origin or at least a prime stimulus of the country store. If the postmaster had dealt in food and hardware before he heard from the Lorillards, now he was encouraged to branch out from tobacco into other goods. People going for their mail at combined post offices and country stores today still buy Lorillard tobacco there, and cracker-barrel Early country store and post office. congresses smoke and chew it while they set- tle the affairs of the village and the nation. When the republic was young. the Lorillard idea was a particular blessing to outpost communities. At the post office-store, frontier folk purchased or bartered for their tobacco and other needs. One of the most famous frontiers- men of them all, Daniel Boone, could find in settlement stores the where- _ withal to fill the pipe he is credited with inventing-the the corncob. That cheap and handy pipe gained still more prestige when the wives of two Presidents smoked it in the White House: Mrs. Andrew Jackson and Mrs. Zachary Taylor. The pipe always has been a favorite with authors. Tennyson ordered medium-length clays by the gross, and Kingsley by the barrel. Mark Twain, who declared he smoked only once a day-"all day long"-hired a man to break in his pipes. A pipe, packed with India House, Briggs, Friends, or Union Leader, remains a popular smoke to this day. These fine smoking tobaccos are still an important part of Lorillard's business. =5

Snuff, described by a poet as "the final cause for the human nose," began to come into fashion about 1700 and claimed that century and some of the next for its own, largely supplantina pipN-smoking for a time. Snuff-takers saw the struggle between Britain and 1• rance for America, the American Revolution and the beginning of our nation, the French Revolution and the birth of the French Republic. Devotees of snuff tendered each other a pinch from their boxes with more ceremony than graced the handing about of a peace pipe. Sniffing it up their nostrils. they sneezed with satisfaction and eclat. Snufl, becoming the height of fashion, was celebrated by one fair user in a rhyme: "She that with pure tobacco will not prime Her nose, can be no ladv of the time." Because snuff was the vogue in France and England. its use quickly spread through the American Colonies, and it continued to l~e the style in the United States when Dolly Madison tendered it elegantly to guest$ in the White House and served the popular new dish called ire cream. Snuff was a specialty of the first Pierre Lorillard and a foundation of his successful venture in the tobacco business. Tolerable snuff could be made by rubbing tobacco to a powder through a grater, but the voung French- American manufactured his quality product in a mill with revolving stones, at first operated by man- or horse-power. Soon his recipes for a dozen differ- (Left) Snuff mill of the type set up by Pierre Lorillard in 1760. The snuff was pulverized to powder form by the action of revolving stone wheels turning upon a third stone wheel cut out like a basin. (Right) An early artisan grates snuff by hand. ~~

ent varieties became celebrated, and competitors tried to guess their ingredi- ents, closely guarded trade secrets. In an old manuscript one rival gives directions for making Lorillard's genuine maccohoy suuff and advises that "by observing what kind of tobacco Lorillard buys at auction or at private sale, the right cocnplexion of the leaf can be come at." Still attempts to imitate usually failed, and it is easy to understand why in view of the careful processing required by Pierre's recipe for Paris rappee snull: "Take a good strong virgin tc~>>acco without stetns. Cut this in pieces and make it wet ( probaLly with rtnn ) in a barrel. Set it in sweet (sweat) room at 100 degrees for 12 days. Make into powder, let stand three to four months, adding 1?<> pounds salmoniac, 2 pounds tamarind, 2 oz. vanilla bean, 1 oz. tonka bean, 1 oz. camomile flowers." Snuff was the occasion for the first innovation in Lorillard's long list. To keep it fresh Pierre originated the idea of putting it up in animal bladders, dried and tanned like parchment. Although attractive snuff bottles later were adopted, the bladders remain famous as the forerunners of cellophane which, generations later, the firm would be the first to use on packages of cigarettes to preserve their freshness. Pierre's expanding business activities were hampered as waves of Revolu- tionary War events washed through New York. He had to grit his teeth when Hessian soldiers took up quarters in his parents' home outside of town, to which the patriotic Pierre had fled from the Tory occupied city. Perhaps he showed his resentment. In any case there was an explosion of violence- and Hessian soldiers killed Pierre Lorillard, the Huguenot who had come to the New World to find freedom and opportunity. Pierre's widow dried her tears and 5t1'ngaled heroically-and successfully-to hold the business together until her two small sons would be old enough to take over. The two very young men graduated as fast as they then required for New York's daily needs. Bottle of snuff,, bearing the __ _Indian tradema7rk, ' ;m.ar- keted liy or' ~a'rd~,in I'832. 91708400 could from running errands to becoming enter- prising businessmen. Presently P. Lorillard Company was more prosperous than ever and Pierre's soils, Peter and George, then decided to move their factory ten miles north of New York City to the woods of Westchester, and there Lorillard enterprise was once more signally displayed. In one of the early and most efficient developments of water-power in America, they harnessed the Bronx River to turn the wheels of their new snuff mill. A fine, swift flow of water, tumbling through a gorge, never failed. Even in the dry summer of 1798, there was no water shortage, but eleven and one-half niillion gallons raced by ;/~~ ~' every twelve hours. nearly forty times the amount

That sylvan site ticas. and is. a charming spot. The original wooden mill was replaced hv one of native field stone, built by Peter Lorillard about 1800. Standing in the picturesque gorge of the Bronx River, in what is now the New York Botanical Garden in Bronx Park, the ancient stone mill which over a century ago was the heart of the great tobacco empire, has now Plaque acknowledges role played by Lorillard in the restoration and reopening of the old Mill. been restored as an attractive puh- lic restaurant, with a broad out- door terrace fronting the river, and a club room and meeting place for garden and other groups. A landmark in the tobacco history of America, the structure was for- mally dedicated on April 10, 1954, as a living monument to the nation's oldest tobacco company. Lorillard snuff-black and yel- low-maccohov, salt, and sweet -was shipped from the mill throughout the country. LTndoulrt- edh: some of its brands filled the handsome boxes which to this day flank the rostrum in the Senate chamber in Nashington. 18