Little Brunswick Cigar Box

One of the distinct pleasures of living in a house that has been in the family for more than a century is the periodic ‘discovery’ of an interesting ‘treasure.’  Not that any (so far) of these found objects have any significant monetary value, nor are they really new to us.  But, at our age and with our memories such as they are, we enjoy the delight of the first time with every time.

Yesterday, I was on the search for Linda’s camisole that she thought she might have left here when she visited last.  I went upstairs to look in her room and in any other likely places, all the while keeping an eye out for Osa who had gone up there to hide out for a while.  (Osa, grieving for Gordon and getting used to her new home, has discovered a whole host of under-the-beds up there.  Little does she know that a slightly moving dust ruffle revealed her secret spot.)

Although I didn’t find the camisole (and wondered if rsident ghost Mrs. Crouch is into modern undergarments), I did discover a small wooden cigar box filled with some sort of trading premiums – an earlier version of S & H Green Stamps, perhaps.  I remember tucking the box away some years ago when we were rearranging the house for our sojourn here.

Open Cigar Box

Every day, it seemed, we ran across some other interesting artifact – my Uncle Ed’s old bats and leather-covered baseballs; my grandfather’s collar box with his celluloid collar still inside; a box full of marbles, many hand-made, that belonged to who-knows-who in the family.  Most of these treasures I left in the drawers and cupboards where we found them.  We got so much pleasure out of “discovering” them, I wanted future guests or caretakers to feel the same thrill of finding them.

The 4½ by 7½ x 2¼ inch box once contained cigars of the “Colorado Claro” variety, according to the label on one end.  They were from the Jacob Stahl, Jr. & Co., “Manufacturers of Fine Cigars” with factories in New York and Chicago with “another big factory a Havana, Cuba, where they employed over two hundred Cuban cigar makers” according to information gleaned on the internet.   The company was started in 1858 and, though there is really no hard evidence,   I would judge that this particular box dates back to the 1920s.

My grandparents and their family lived in this house then.  My grandfather was a non-smoker, but I know that his younger brother Will smoked and was especially fond of cigars.  Or perhaps the box belonged to Wallace Pearson, husband of my mother’s sister Sue.  He was living in the fast lane in the late twenties and early thirties – involved in rum running and other nefarious activities according to whispered family lore.

Coupons

Nor do I know who saved all of those premium coupons.  There are dozens and dozens of them.  Somehow, it doesn’t seem like something my grandmother would have bothered with.  But, it does seem like something one of her daughters would have saved – either Medora or Sue – and if the box was among their effects when they died – Medora in 1916 and Sue in 1932 – my grandmother would definitely have kept the box and its contents totally intact.

When I first ran across the box and its contents twelve or fifteen years ago, I had no easy way to “research” any of it.  Now, there is the internet and the distinct possibility of learning more about the whats and whys of this collection.  Some day… when I have time.  Meanwhile, it’s back in its hidey hole waiting to be discovered yet again.