Who invented the Cigarette?
by pH(x) Pipes
As to who was the first person to roll a cigarette, this question can be debatable. What we do know is that Tobacco can be traced as far back as the Native Americans. Christopher Columbus discovered tobacco leaves but sent them back to his ship where they were tossed away. No doubt he didn’t see the importance of tobacco leaves back then. Native Americans smoked tobacco for medical reasons or religious ceremonies. This was not a daily habit for them. Perhaps they smoked other herbs for medical issues.
As early as 1612 the first settlers of Jamestown, Virginia grew their own tobacco and sold it. It was their primary cash resource during that time. Tobacco played an important role in the Revolutionary war in that the cash sales helped to pay for the cost of that war against the English. Even George Washington took an interest in tobacco and grew it himself.
There are many stories regarding who invented the cigarette and the first glass pipe. One story is that an English beggar by the name of Horrey Thornfield invented the cigarette in 1743. He asked a local butcher for some scraps. After he ate the scraps he decided to reach for a smoke and to his surprise his pipe was gone. He had suddenly remembered that he lost it in a gambling bet the night before. Desperate for a smoke he took a piece of the butcher wrap and rolled the world’s very first smoke. Others will say that an Egyptian artilleryman invented the cigarette in 1832 .He and his crew was rewarded with on pound of tobacco for rolling their gun powder in composition tubes. Since his pipe was broken he rolled the first cigarette in a thesis tube.
Others say that the Spaniards were responsible for the first rolled cigarette. However in 1860, manufacturing of cigarettes began its career in the United States. Bull Durham was the popular brand of that time, accumulating 90% of the cigarettes on the market. The first manufactured cigarettes first appeared in the United States in 1860. A popular impulsive brand, Bull Durham, commanded 90% of the marketplace. But it was in Havana in 1853 that the first public cigarette factory first opened its doors. But before the factories and the manufacturing there was a man by the name of Washington Duke who made cigarettes on his farm in Raleigh, North Carolina. He sold those hand-rolled cigarettes to the soldiers towards the finish of the Civil War. Perhaps the wounded soldiers were able to get a taste of something else rolled in the form of a cigarette that helped alleviate their physical war pains.
