When Tobacco Was King in St. Charles County

by Bob Brail

          Driving through rural Missouri, a person sees field after field of corn and soy beans. Only very rarely would a driver spot a tobacco field. In fact, only twelve counties in Missouri contained farms growing tobacco in 2012. It is hard to envision Missouri as a place where tobacco once flourished, but the truth is that in the last half of the 1800's, tobacco fields were a common sight. This was especially so in St. Charles County where, especially in the 1860's and 1870's, tobacco was king.

          One of Missouri's most important crops in the middle of the nineteenth century was tobacco. In fact, by the early 1870's, Missouri produced more tobacco than all but two other states. Almost every county in the state had tobacco growers. One of Missouri's most productive tobacco regions in the latter half of the nineteenth century encompassed the western half of St. Charles County, from Big Creek (formerly Eagle Fork), a branch of the Cuivre River, north of Flint Hill all the way south to the Missouri River. It included three townships: Cuivre, Calloway, and Femme Osage.

          In 1860 ninety-six farmers in St. Charles County produced over 145 tons of tobacco. The leading tobacco-producing township was Calloway with sixty-five tons; Cuivre Township's production was forty-three tons, followed by Femme Osage Township with twenty-five tons, and Dardenne Township with nearly twelve tons. Over half of this tobacco, seventy-seven tons, was produced on farms owned by slave owners, which clearly shows the importance of slave labor in tobacco production in St. Charles County. Of course, farmers who did not own slaves could pay a slave owner for the use of his slaves, so the quantity of tobacco produced through slave labor was probably much higher than seventy-seven tons. In Calloway Township, the four highest yield tobacco-producing farms were owned by slave owners. In Dardenne Township only five farms grew tobacco, but the four owned by slave owners produced 21,000 pounds of tobacco through the labor of fifty-nine slaves.

Top Tobacco Producers in 1860

                     Name                  Township               Pounds                       Slaveowner

              James Webb             Calloway                12,000                                Yes

              Robert Frayser          Dardenne               12,000                                Yes

              Oblesby Young         Calloway                 10,000                                Yes

             William Scott              Cuivre                     10,000                                 No

             Cheilis Farney            Femme Osage          9,000                                Yes

             Eliza Carter                Cuivre                       8,000                                 Yes

             H. F. Elliott                 Cuivre                       8,000                                  No

             J. M. Edwards            Calloway                   8,000                                 Yes

             Joseph Stallard          Femme Osage          8,000                                 Yes

          As the area tobacco crops flourished, area businessmen began operating tobacco factories. By 1860, there were eight factories processing tobacco in the Wentzville area, employing a total of 134 men. The amount of tobacco these factories used exceeded the total amount of tobacco grown in St. Charles County, so farmers from neighoring counties must have been selling their tobacco to these Wentzville businesses. St. Charles County was one of two Missouri counties “credited with having been the cradle of invention of plug chewing tobacco.” By the 1880's, the First Missouri Internal Revenus Collection District, which included St. Charles County, was first in the United States in the ranking of tobacco factories, mostly because of the quantity of plug tobacco they produced.

          Many of the men who would eventually become some of the “St. Louis tobacco manufacturing giants” were from the prime tobacco growing region of St. Charles County, specifically the Flint Hill area. These include George S. Myers, who was born in Flint Hill in 1832, and in 1860 was operating a tobacco factory in Wentzville. In 1873 Myers formed the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company with John Liggett. Paul Brown entered the tobacco business in Flint Hill in 1868 and founded the Brown Tobacco Company in 1881. James T. and John N. Drummond were both born in Flint Hill; for awhile James Drummond partnered in the tobacco business with George Myers, before Myers left to join John Liggett. James and John Drummond then founded the extremely successful Drummond Tobacco Company, which sold its products internationally.

          Other important tobacco giants included the Dula brothers and Joel Carr. Robert Dula, a school teacher, moved to the Wentzville area in the early 1870's and eventually he and his brother, Caleb, became involved in the tobacco business, joining the Drummonds' company in 1884. Joel Carr became involved in the tobacco business in 1858. Within a few years, Carr partnered with his son-in-law, Robert Dula, and built a tobacco factory in Wentzville.

          In 1884 several area businessmen and farmers formed the Wentzville Tobacco Company, purchased three lots in Wentzville, and built a brick factory. It was here that the company produced Ginger Cake and Pocket Piece plug tobaccos. The superintendent of the factory was Joel Carr. After only eight years the business closed and the building was sold, probably due to “national market trends and conditions.”

         By 1880 tobacco production in St. Charles County was in decline. For example, while there had been thirty tobacco growers in the county who had harvested at least two tons in 1860, by 1880 there was only one.

Top Tobacco Producers in 1880

                        Name                             Township                               Pounds

               G. C. Johnson                         Calloway                                 4,000

               Preston McRoberts                 Calloway                                 3,600

               Alexander Boyd                      Cuivre                                      3,500

               Charles Allen                          Cuivre                                      2,500

              William Baker                          Cuivre                                      2,200

              B. D. Luckett                            Calloway                                 2,060

              John O'Brien                            Cuivre                                     2,000

              Joseph Farris                           Cuivre                                     2,000

              George Jenkins                       Cuivre                                      2,000

           From 1860 to 1880, the county's tobacco production had moved slightly north and was centered in Cuivre Township. In 1880 twenty-nine farmers in this township produced over fourteen tons of tobacco. Calloway Township, which in 1860 had been the county's prime tobacco growing region, produced far less tobacco by 1880. Its smaller tobacco growing area extended south into the township to a point northwest of New Melle, stretching past what is now Highway N to Foristell Road, more or less following the path of Morrison Lane. In fact, the two largest producers of tobacco in the county in 1880 were G. C. Johnson and J. B. Armstrong of this township. However, Callaway Township had only nine farmers who grew tobacco, and the township's total crop for 1880 was less than eight tons.

          Hardly any tobacco at all was grown in the rest of St. Charles County in 1880. St. Charles Township and Femme Osage Township together only produced about a ton and one half of tobacco on eight small plots. In 1880 not a single farmer in Dardenne Township grew tobacco, even though the township had produced nearly twelve tons in 1860.

Pounds of Tobacco Produced    

                     Township                                            1860                                  1880

                     Calloway                                        130,000                                 15,870

                     Cuivre                                              86,350                                  28,418

                     Femme Osage                                 51,300                                   1,300

                    Dardenne                                          23,000                                      0

                    St. Charles                                            200                                   1,535

                    Portage de Sioux                                      0                                        0

          By the end of the century, tobacco planting in Missouri had declined to about one half million pounds annually, down from a high of over twenty-five million pounds annually in 1860. Of course, some of the decline in production occurred immediately after the Civil War, due to the abolition of slavery. In fact, by 1880 only five farmers who had raised tobacco with slave labor were still growing the product; in 1860 forty-one slave owners had farmed tobacco. Some of the later decline in tobacco production was due to the “Great Plug War,” which occurred when James Duke, who founded the American Tobacco Company, tried to eliminate his competitors through price cutting and advertising. Smaller companies could not afford these measures, and many were forced out of business. Other factors contributing to declining tobacco production were pests and diseases, and the depletion of soil nutrients due to repeated planting of tobacco.

          If tobacco was once the agricultural king St. Charles County, it is now a mere commoner. Though dozens of farmers from the western half of the county raised tobacco in the decades from 1860 to1880, though many of the “founding fathers” of the tobacco industry came from this area, and though several tobacco factories were once found in this area, tobacco farming is no longer practiced in St. Charles County.

Sources: 1860 Federal Agricultural Census (State Historical Society of Missouri); 1860 Federal Manufacturing Census (State Historical Society of Missouri); 1860 Federal Population Census; 1860 Federal Slave Census (ancestryheritagequest.com); 1880 Federal Agricultural Census (State Historical Society of Missouri); 1880 Federal Population Census; “City of St. Louis” n.d.; “County Profile: St. Charles County, Missouri” (agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources); “History” (cityofflinthill.com); “History of Wentzville” (wentzvillemo.org/government); “Wentzville Tobacco Company Factory,” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (dnr.mo.gov); “The Great Tobacco Era of Western St. Charles County,” Barb Mittelbuscher and Gerry Matlock (Past Times: Saint Charles Second Quarter 1985); wikipedia.org.