J.C. Newman Unveils Cigars From 1857
Last week, cigarmaker J.C. Newman unveiled a new exhibit at its El Reloj museum and factory in Tampa showcasing 18 cigars that are believed to be among the oldest in the world. The age of these cigars is a secondary point of wonder, however, as they were also recovered from the wreckage of the S.S. Central America, known as the “Ship of Gold,” which sank in 1857 in the Atlantic Ocean. J.C. Newman purchased the Havana-made cigars at an auction in March after reading about them in this story posted on CigarAficionado.com in February.
In early September of 1857, the S.S. Central America was heading for New York City, by way of Panama, when it got caught in a hurricane off the coast of the Carolinas. The ship lost her fight with the sea on September 12, taking 425 crew and passengers with her, along with heaps of Gold Rush treasure from San Francisco. The ship, the gold and a vast inventory of other artifacts, including Cuban cigars, lay dormant 7,200 feet below the surface of the ocean until a series of recovery expeditions in the late 20th century, and then again in 2014.
The sinking of the S.S. Central America continues to have a lasting legacy. Many believe its demise was a contributing factor to the Panic of 1857, America’s first major financial crisis, as banks in New York were counting upon the incoming shipments of gold to fortify their diminishing reserves. The published commercial gold cargo aboard was worth $1.6 million at the time, not including passenger cargo, which is estimated to have been roughly the same value.
The Captain, William Lewis Herndon, is one of the most revered figures in United States Naval history. The bell from the S.S. Central America now sits on the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland next to a 21-foot tall granite statue of Commander Herndon that has stood since 1860. According to Bob Evans, chief scientist on the recovery missions, survivors of the shipwreck reported that once Commander Herndon and his officers realized the ship was going to sink, they lit up cigars and smoked them as she was taken by the sea.
Excavations of the shipwreck revealed hoards of fascinating artifacts, from an original pair of Levi Straus jeans to 18-karat gold jewelry (the former sold for $114,000 at an auction earlier this year). But these miraculous finds paled in comparison to the 37 hand-rolled cigars found remarkably intact inside a first-class passenger’s trunk. John Dement, the original owner of the trunk, had purchased the cigars a few nights before the ship’s sinking while in port at Havana.
Bob Evans credits unique water conditions and the minimally-breached trunk to the long-held resilience of these cigars. Upon discovery, the smokes were carefully extracted and ultimately slowly freeze-dried over a few months to reach essentially the same, stable condition they exist in now. They are largely intact, but considerably rough in appearance due to being kept in far less than ideal conditions for so many years, and don’t look like a cigar one would enjoy smoking. Still, they are in better condition than one would expect given where they have been, and for so long.
In March, J.C. Newman purchased 18 of the preserved cigars in an auction run by Holabird Western Americana Collections LLC, who had become a consignor of the ship’s treasures by way of the California Gold Marketing Group. The latter held the rights to all the recovered items from the S.S. Central America and commissioned Holabird to auction off most of the artifacts in two auctions held earlier this year.
“Discovering these cigars is like finding a bottle of wine owned by Thomas Jefferson or Napoleon Bonaparte,” says Drew Newman, fourth-generation owner of J.C. Newman Cigar Co. “The 18 cigars vary in size because they were rolled by hand without cigar molds, which did not become popular until the late 1800s.” Newman believes these cigars are the oldest in the world.
“Prior to the discovery of these cigars, the oldest known cigars in the world were from 1863,” he says.
The prospect of these cigars being among the most vintage on the globe only makes their story all the more astounding. Thankfully, cigar and history lovers are able to bear witness to their legacy due to J.C. Newman. The cigars are now on display in the basement Cigar Vault of J.C. Newman’s El Reloj factory in Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood.
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