Column: Hundreds of thousands of cigars

Plattsburgh, from the 1860s through to WWII, was the manufacturing site of items we consider today as historical artifacts such as Islam's passenger carriages and sleighs, the Williams typewriter, Leo Potter's Thermiodyne radio, and the 5 cent cigar. From the 1860s on into the 1940s, the 'fragrance' of a quality cigar could be detected by walking down Margaret Street between Court and Broad Streets. What began with small businesses in the late 1860s turned into a major cigar manufacturing industry for the City of Plattsburgh thanks to the Scheiers, Mendelsohns, Levys, Merkels and Payettes, to name just a few. Newspaper reports and research by the late CCHA president Dr. Allan Everest opens the door to a different time when the handmade cigar industry in Plattsburgh employed dozens of workers and produced thousands of cigars. Trains brought dried and cured bundles of tobacco that required significant storage space for the Plattsburgh cigar maker. The components of a quality cigar were the wrapper, a filler and an outside binder leaf, then sealed with paste or saliva. Tools included a chavetas, a cutting board, tragacanth paste, a paste cup, a cigar cutter and a cigar mold. Isaias Scheier (1836-1915) was one of the earliest cigar makers in town. His business is first advertised in 1863 and continued on until the early 1900s. His establishment was next to the Cumberland Hotel in what was known as the Scheier Building. When the Cumberland burned in 1978, this building was severely damaged too. Isaias had two sons, Solomon and Henry, who continued on with the manufacture of cigars. Solomon initially worked with his father under the name of Scheier and Son but eventually he branched out. His business was the Park Cigar Store at 16 Brinkerhoff, a building that preceded the one there now. Henry too began with his father in the Scheier Building but also left to start his own business called The Ingleside. Henry employed up to 15 workers and produced approximately 650,000 cigars a year. No story of the Plattsburgh Cigar industry can be told without the stories of the Levy Brothers, William and Marcus along with Julius Mendelsohn. The Levy's opened their business on Margaret Street in 1882. They needed all three floors of their building plus the basement to store the tobacco required to produce 1 million cigars a year. They continued in the cigar business until after WWII. Julius Mendelsohn began working with Isaias Scheier but started on his own in 1892. The Mendelsohn business became the Payette Mendelsohn & Co. operation and was reported to have produced 1.2 million cigars a year, employed up to 40 people and continued in business into the 1940s, even after Julius' death in 1934. As these businesses developed, so did the machinery required to make the process easier and faster. While Julius was alive, he often operated at a loss, still making cigars by hand, because he insisted on keeping the employees who had been with him for years. The newspapers reported that most of our local cigar manufacturers were associated with the Cigar Makers' Union which in the early 1900s was reported by the Plattsburgh Sentinel to be the strongest national labor organization in America. The union supported sanitary manufacturing conditions and the importance of selling union-made cigars. As the depression hit and smoking habits changed, and cigar making became more mechanized, local cigar makers were fewer and fewer and after 75 years, Plattsburgh no longer was known for its handmade cigars. The skill of making a cigar was recognized in obituaries for years to come. For a copy of Dr. Everest's article on the Plattsburgh Cigar Industry or sources for more information on the many people who worked in the cigar industry, contact the Clinton County Historical Association at director@clintoncountyhistorical.org. -This month's Heritage Corner column was written by Clinton County Historical Association Director Helen Nerska

Signup for our newsletter

Column: Hundreds of thousands of cigars

COMPANY

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

SUBMISSION FORMS

BEYOND THE NEWS