Question: The residents of the area were delighted when this group of gentlemen came to town. Do you know why they were here and why the populace was delighted to see them?
Last week’s answer: The photo from last week shows tobacco plants that have reached their maturity and were about three to four feet tall. The men, using long-handled clippers, are cutting the plant near the ground. The plants were then left to wilt in the sun, until they were wilted enough to be easily handled without the leaves being damaged.
The growing of tobacco, which was introduced to this locality from Connecticut around 1845, reached such a proportion that almost every farmer cultivated an acre or more in the next half century and longer. Local soils were excellent for raising a good crop, which usually found a market.
The process of growing it was very labor-intensive with attention needed to the crop starting in April until harvest time, sometime around August when the crop was deemed ready to cut. As the photo shows the leaves are cut and laid carefully, on the ground to wilt. This was done so that the leaves would not be broken. After that the leaves were strung on lath and taken to the tobacco warehouse to dry. After three months, the tobacco was taken down, the leaves stripped from the stalks, packed in bundles and wrapped in heavy paper for shipping. Then the “moment” that the farmers had been looking for since April arrived. The tobacco merchants from New York City came to town to purchase the crop. Tobacco was known as a “cash” or “money crop.” Many farmhouses were built and land improvements came about through the profits from this source.
The peak time, early 1900s, saw more than $2 million worth of the “weed” collected within a radius of 15 miles of Baldwinsville and shipped from the village. It’s been said that at one time one of the banks in town was about to go under, but when the farmers deposited their earnings, it save the bank.
Of further note, the variety grown here was mostly for the outer wrappers of cigars and as a result a cottage industry, the making of cigars popped up around here. Many women earned extra money by setting up a small room on the farm and rolling cigars to sell.
A number of readers called, emailed or wrote on our Facebook page to identify this week’s photo. The first to get the correct answer were Marc and Judy Kolceski, who sent the following note in an email: “The crop was tobacco, which was a very common crop grown in Baldwinsville back in the late 1800s. It was laid out in the fields to dry and then tied up in bunches, hung in barns to dry. Our horse farm on Kingdom Road was the Duffy Farm back in the 1960s, and our wooden barn dates back to 1845. This area was called ‘the Kingdom’ and known for tobacco farming.”
Thanks to Pat Johnson for the photo.
Contact Editor Sarah Hall at [email protected] or leave a message at 434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by 5 p.m. Friday (please leave the information in the message; we are not generally able to return calls regarding History Mystery responses). If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo before the deadline, your name and guess will appear in next week’s Messenger, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
