From the Richmond Daily State Journal, 3/27/1872, p. 1, c. 3

OUR TOBACCO MANUFACTORIES.
Their Extent and the Business They are Doing.
“CASTLE THUNDER.”

Few persons outside of those actually engaged in the business are fully aware of the extent of the daily operations in tobacco in this city. A rough estimate might be formed annually manufactured, where that is definitely known, but even then a person would have to be familiar with the different processes of manufacture, and know something of the demands of capital and labor connected with the business, to form anything more than a very general opinion as to results. In order to give our readers, in this and other states, a full and perfectly reliable statement of this great Virginia interest as developed in Richmond, we have been at some pains in gathering the following statistics which may be considered entirely accurate.

The table we give includes the whole number of tobacco manufacturers, employees, etc., in the Third district, but as there are only two manufacturing establishments in the district outside of Richmond, it may be considered as embracing the business done in this city:

Number of Manufacturies……. 57
Number of Employees………… 11,049
Number of Cutting Machines... 19
Number of Screw Presses……. 909
Number of Hydraulic Presses... 51
Number of Hand Mills……….. 13
Number of Pounds of tobacco annually manufactured………. 20,000,000

It will be seen from this statement that nearly one-fifth of the entire population of the city, and full one-fourth of the adult population, is engaged in this important branch of industry. We can understand then how seriously this great interest must be affected by the unjust discrimination against our local manufacturers, in putting a tax of only one-half the amount exacted of them upon the large and wealthy manufacturers of the North and West who have evaded the just intent of the law by putting a “fine cut” upon the market, which has largely taken the place of the Virginia plug and twist, and which has heretofore paid, by reason of an evasive process of manufacture, but one-half the duty required of the Virginia manufacturers. It is to be hoped that Congress will soon right this great wrong, and that all our local industries will feel the beneficent effect imparted to this great interest by the removal of this unjust discrimination.

The processes which tobacco must go through before reaching the market in its manufactured state are quite numerous, and we briefly give them for the information of the general reader. The farmer consigns his tobacco to the commission merchant in the city, who designates the warehouse to which it shall be hauled.

These warehouses are six in number, viz:

Mayo’s warehouse
Shockoe warehouse Nos. 1 and 2
Seabrook’s warehouse
Public warehouse
Anderson’s warehouse

When received at the warehouse, the tobacco is marked, numbered, and listed to the commission merchant who stores it. Each warehouse has its own “breaking” day, (that is a day for knocking off the staves of the hogshead containing the lea,) and of smapling the tobacco. A fair sample is taken from each hogshead, when a tag is attached to it giving the mark, number, and weight of the hogshead. The commission merchant takes these samples to the Tobacco Exchange, where they are offered for sale, the manufacturer or dealer in the leaf purchasing from the sample, and receiving his “tobacco note” or proper order for the lot according to mark, number and weight, each note giving the gross, tare, and net weight of the lot. When purchased, the buyer pays the warehouse charges, which are $1.50 for each hogshead, not exceeding 500 lbs., and this payment entitles him to a twelve months’ storage in the warehouse from the date of purchase. It is rarely the case that the grade of the hogshead does not come up to the sample, and yet it sometimes happens that a hogshead is “nested,” that is, that an inferior grade is put in by the farmer in such a way as escape the keen eye of the inspector. The operations of the Tobacco Exchange are heavy and numerous as might be expected from the amount of tobacco constantly passing hands in the city. The whole business of merchanting, warehousing, sampling, and selling is admirably conducted. The business is in the hands of men of intelligence, character and worth, and no branch of American trade is more honorably conducted anywhere than that governing the tobacco purchases and sales in Richmond.

Passing from the Tobacco Exchange, we come to the manufacturers – those who give employment to so many thousands of the industrious poor of our city, and who are consequently among the most valuable business members of our community. The number of these manufacturers is large, their establishments, great and small, reaching fifty-five. That of Mr. James B. Pace is the largest in the city, and is capable of turning out not less than 2,000,000 pounds of manufactured tobacco a year. This is the amount which he hops to manufacture this year, under a just and equitable modification of the tariff, such as Congress is strongly petitioned to make.

“CASTLE THUNDER.”

Mr. John H. Greaner, a name long and favorable known in the tobacconist world, (for Mr. G. has been a tobacco manufacturer from his first commencement in business, as was his father before him,) is now running “Castle Thunder” with a spirit of thrift and enterprise far exceeding that displayed by the Confederate government when it took possession of the building for another and less profitable branch of industry, to say the least of it. This building which is 120 feet long and about 300 feet deep, is situated on Cary street, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets, and only a block from its companion prison “The Libby.” It is a “historic” edifice, and hundreds and thousands of persons visit it annually, to see where their companions and friends were caliboosed” as deserters and suspected persons during the war. It was the Confederate Bastile, and we hope it may long stand, under its present happy management, to attest the glory of Peace,

“Which hath her victories
No less renowned than those of war.”

Entering the business office of “Castle Thunder,” you are pleasantly greeted by the proprietor, who, if you come to see the building, at once calls a gentlemanly attendant to show you through the same, and you immediately go to the third story, or what is called the

LEAF-ROOM.

Here you see hogshead upon hogshead of the tobacco leaf, fresh from the warehouse, with the staves knocked off, and a strong force of men putting the tobacco through the first process which it undergoes at the factory – that of “opening and assorting,” preparatory to the second operation, which is that of “dipping and casing.” The dipping consists in plugging the leaf into a strong solution of licorice, or other sweetening preparation, while what is called “casing” is a process of sprinkling the leaf with a similar preparation of licorice. After dipping, the leaf (still tied in small bundles as it comes from the grower of the weed) is strung on slender sticks about five feet in length and hung up on racks to dry. The entire fourth story of the building is used as a drying-room, as is also a portion of the third story; and, when the weather is favorable, the roofs to the wings, in the rear part of the building, are largely used for sun-drying – “Old Sol” smiling more benignly on the “weed” and giving it a finer flavor than can be imparted by any artificial process of drying. The leaf for the wrappers is also prepared on the third floor for the stemming process, which is mostly done by boys and girls in the

LUMP-ROOM.

In this room a large force is employed in stripping the leaf from its stems, and in lumping and twisting the tobacco for the press-room. These lumps and twists are of different sizes, according as they are designed for the different sized shapers, some being small enough for pocket pieces, others weighing quarters, half pounds and pounds. Then the lumps and twists are thus prepared, they are sent to the

PRESS ROOM.

Here the lumps, which are leaf-wrapped much in the same way as are cigars, but less perfectly, are placed in what are called the “shapers,” which consist of racks or forms, called “shaping mills,” containing a greater or less number of compartments according to the size of the plug to be made, each rack fitting into the other like so many pieces of dove-tailed box-work, so that each lump may receive its due share of pressure from the retainer-presses. This is the first process the lumps go through in the press room. After they have gone through the “retainers” or the process of shaping, in which they receive a pressure of from 200 to 250 tons weight, they are passed into the pots or “finishers,” where they are subjected to still another pressure of from 150 to 200 tons weight, when they are ready for packing. The process of finishing consists in placing one layer of plugs above another in the pots, (or strong iron press-beds) with tin or iron plates between each layer, until the pots are filled, when the whole is subjected to the additional pressure we have named. This pressure is effected by means of a large hydraulic pump, made stationary at one end of the building, from which a pipe connects with each of the pots, and by the use of cut-offs, the whole force of the pump may be given to any single pot at a time. A pressure of 200 tons may be secured in this way in a few minutes time.

In securing the required pressure to the retainers a movable hydraulic ram is used of still greater power. In fact the power obtained by one of these rams is so enormous that nay one of the presses may be easily rent by them, breaking iron bed-plates of six or eight inches thickness in two, or rending iron bars of three and a half inches diameter as if they were so many pipe-stems. When the plugs have gone through the finishers they are ready for packing. – This is done in what are called the box-screws” or powerful iron presses in which the power is secured by an iron lever. – These box-screws are large enough to pack four of what are called six-inch boxes at a time, that is, boxes eighteen by six inches. The packing is done quite rapidly and a pressure of many tons is given to the tobacco as it is packed in layers in the boxes. There are in the Castle Thunder factory thirty-two of these box-screws for packing, fourteen retainers and fourteen pots or finsihers, or machinery enough to easily turn out 6,000 pounds of tobacco a day. The full force of factory hands at this establishment is 250.

The process here described is that of making the common plug of different sizes. In the manufacture of what is called “bright work,” there is the process of drying the lumps after they are rolled. This is done by placing the lumps on dryers and giving them sun or heat enough to draw the tobacco, so that when it is pressed the licorice or sweetening will not show itself. When the rolls are sufficiently drawn they have a sort of kid-glove feeling indicating the requisite dryness. When boxed the tobacco is passed ot the lower floor of the building or the

SHIPPING-ROOM.

Here the smaller boxes of tobacco are cased, and the whole work is inspected by the proper internal revenue officer, to see that “Uncle Sam’s” rules and regulations (a little inquisitorial at the present time, and necessarily so by reason of the big debt he had to contract in putting down the rebellion, and which he is trying to pay off like an honest man by the help of Rush Burgess) are fully complied with. Her all tax-paid tobacco is properly stamped by the manufacturer with tax-paid stamps. That shipped in bond is inspected, and the proper inspector’s stamp affixed, with a bond from the manufacturer holding him to the payment of the required tax when the tobacco shall be withdrawn from bond. Where the tobacco is shipped abroad, it pays no duty except an export stamp of 25 cents; but still a bond is required of the manufacturer, as in the case of tobacco shipped in bond, which is cancelled by the proper Consul’s certificate that the tobacco shipped to the foreign port has been received by the consignee, in the identical packages in which it left “Castle Thunder” in Richmond. All this is a little annoying to the manufacturers here, but they philosophically make the best of it, and universally agree that while our Collector of Internal revenue does his whole duty to the Government, he does it simply “according to law” and by no means offensively. This is the universal testimony of the manufacturers in Richmond, and we have no doubt that the Inspectors here would bear equal testimony to the integrity and honor of the manufacturers, that in no case do they seek to evade the law or get rid of the obligation it imposes.

In addition to the different departments or manufacturing rooms at “Castle Thunder,” there is the carpenter shop in which all the boxes and cases are made; the wash-room where the stems are put up in bundles and packed in hogsheads for shipping, about 1,600 pounds of stems being pressed into each hogshead; with other rooms for doing whatever is required to carry out the business in thorough detail in all its branches.

Besides “Castle Thunder,” there are fifty-four other manufactories in the city, all employing a greater or less number of hands, and turning out their accustomed quota of work. The interest is a constantly growing one, and has been less affected by the war than any other branch of industry in the State. Richmond takes the lead of any city in the world in this manufacturing industry, and long may she hold the supremacy which her position and enterprize so justly entitles her to maintain.

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