YOUR MANCHESTER (Connecticut): Tobacco was once a major industry in town

[El Presidente]

 

YOUR MANCHESTER: Tobacco was once a major industry in town

https://www.journalinquirer.com/living/your-manchester-tobacco-was-once-a-major-industry-in-town/article_fec01e40-bcbe-11ec-8682-9f533ca669c5.html

Early in the mornings, I would often see my peers and other teenagers standing on the street corners in Manchester, waiting for a bus. It was not the school bus, but a tobacco farm bus. These young adults were a standard sight for Manchester residents for many years.

When asked, many people in their 50s and older remember working tobacco as their first job. This case was not just because the crop was a significant product of the area, but because the state allowed children younger than 16 to pick tobacco.

The Manchester Historical Society has accounts of people working broad-leaf farms in Manchester from the early 1900s to the present time.

 

 

Henry Brook’s account in the historical society’s book “The Storytellers” is one such account.

He recalled working on tobacco between ages 12 and 15 in the mid-1900s. “In the summer, the biggest deal was to get a job on tobacco. I remember having my mother pack a lunch and going down and lining up and waiting and hoping to get a job. I can recall having older men standing in line and realize we were competing with them for a day’s pay.”

Brook noted that he earned about a dollar a day picking tobacco. While the girls he worked with tended to stay staffed in the sheds sewing, he was in the field. “In the fields, the men and boys worked, and I think it’s about the toughest job I’ve ever had in terms of physical activity. If you think it’s hot and tough today, you ought to be out under those tents working and suffering and picking tobacco. But again, everyone was doing it.”

The Connecticut River Valley is famous for its broadleaf and shade tobacco. Broadleaf tobacco is grown under the direct sun. It has wide leaves used for filler and the wrapper on cigars. Shade tobacco matures under a tented field. You can still see these tents, as well as the distinctive large levered barns or sheds, as you travel toward Bradley International Airport.

Tobacco farming has been in the valley since the 1640s. Shade tobacco became a popular crop in the early 1900s. Connecticut tobacco was at its peak in the 1930s but still plays a significant agricultural role today.

My mother came north from Georgia in the 1940s to pick during the summer. My father met her on a farm in Broad Brook. His best friend worked tobacco, and he picked him up after work one day. The rest is history, as they say.

 

 

Most of the local farms were around the South Windsor town line by my time. I came to believe that this was the only area that grew tobacco. I was wrong.

Tobacco barns and fields could be found throughout Manchester in the early 1900s — from Gardiner Street to Keeney Street to Buckland Road. Unfortunately for the farmers, once an area had tobacco planted, it became difficult to grow other crops in the following years.

Besides the actual growing and harvesting, Manchester was also known for its cigar rolling. Connecticut tobacco was the wrapping on many famous cigar products. It was shipped worldwide to cover filler crops gathered from other tobacco-producing states.

Three generations of the Manchester Pohlman family, for example, were cigar makers from 1881 to the 1960s. The Pohlman store operated for more than 75 years in the Depot Square area located around the north end train station. It closed in the mid-1950s.

According to historical society accounts, these Manchester producers used both shade and broadleaf tobacco to roll 250 to 300 cigars a day. At one time, they were one of the top producers of hand-made cigars on the East Coast. The Polhmans shipped these products cross-country for sale.

Today, Connecticut still grows tobacco and makes cigars. But the output of this industry pales compared to the tobacco kingdom the state used to be in the 1900s.

I guess the movie “Parrish” no longer represents Connecticut culture as it did in the 1950s. That was when Troy Donahue and Connie Stevens stood next to my mother during filming in Broad Brook. Mom was one of the many residents used as extras in the Hollywood production.

[NSXCIGAR]

Grew up in the northern CT river valley. Quite a bit of shade grown on my street in fact. Northern is used for wrapper on non-premium. The premium leaf comes from the south--northern CT, from Hartford down. 

Worked at many farms as a kid but never tobacco. It was too specialized. They only used trained adults. I remember they'd bus in (on old school buses) mostly African workers during harvest.