P. Lorillard Tobacco Company
Photo: A. Selvaggio, 2002
P. Lorillard Tobacco Company
Courtesy, Jersey City Free Public Library
P. Lorillard and Company owned the warehouse at 111 First Street for some 85 years during the heyday of Jersey City's industrial era. By the end of the nineteenth century, it was a nationally recognized brand-name manufacturer, the oldest tobacco-product manufacturer, and the nation's largest tobacco manufacturer. It was synonymous with all types of tobacco, including snuff, plug, chewing, and smoking tobacco, numbering over 160 brands. In 1883, the company reported sales of over $10 million a year in domestic and foreign trade producing over 25 million pounds of tobacco products.
Lorillard developed mastery in the category of advertising. It paid farmers to allow painted signs on the sides of barns, included trade cards in their packaging, and offered premiums for other products. Lorillard may also be responsible for using the "cigar store Indian" to promote the sale of tobacco as early as 1789 (James 16). Kent cigarettes were named for Herbert A. Kent, a board chairman and a former president, who promoted the "Old Gold" brand of cigarettes. The "Old Gold" name in colored brick once appeared on the circular chimney within the courtyard of the former Lorillard facility.
The company's founder was a French Huguenot, Pierre Lorillard, who started making snuff in the Bronx, New York City, in 1760. The snuff factory site today is part of the New York Botanical Garden. Lorillard's sons Peter and George took over the business, setting the pattern for the family's long-term involvement in the company. It was incorporated in 1891.
In the early 1870s, the Lorillard Company moved to 111 First Street and manufactured tobacco products and snuff. It took over a Greek Revival brick building constructed in 1866 for one of the nation's first conglomerates, the American Screw Company, which fronted Washington Street. It soon became part of the growing industrial complex in Jersey City. In 1868 Charles Siedler, late a Jersey City mayor (1876-1878), was a partner with the company.
Rick James' Jersey City "warehouse district" historic preservation report notes that Siedler most likely led his partners to locate Lorillard in Jersey City. Here, the company could avail itself of several advantages: the Pennsylvania Railroad and Harsimus Yards for product distribution; a newly-arrived immigrant labor supply; nearby port location for the importing of spices to flavor various tobacco brands; and a municipal water supply system for safety measures. Fire prevention was tantamount to Lorillard in safeguarding the firm's highly combustible products. Its manufacturing plants installed the latest automatic sprinkler system and maintained a detail of firefighters (15-17).
In 1883, Industries of New Jersey, Hudson, Passaic, and Bergen Counties described the company: "It occupies three immense brick buildings used as factories that cover yard for its use, for the manufacture of cases, etc., for packing its goods for transportation. . .. Two of the factories cover one entire block each. These are fitted with machinery, and the united force of four steam engines is required are fitted with machinery, and the united force of four steam engines is required are fitted with machinery, and the united force of four steam engines is required to operate it, amounting to 800 horsepower. Thirty-five hundred hands are employed in these factories, the payroll amounting to thirty-five thousand dollars per week, the hands being paid weekly" (886).
Among the company's 4,000 workers in 1884 were school-aged boys and girls. Since Jersey City lacked a free night school, in 1884, Lorillard began an evening school for its workers to comply with New Jersey's compulsory school law for those younger than sixteen. Located in the library of Booraem Hall on Newark Avenue, the school was not far from the factory. It offered adult employees a free library managed by Dr. Leonard S. Gordon, Lorillard's chief chemist and a physician, who helped establish the Jersey City Free Public Library (James 17). Lorillard also offered sewing classes and a dispensary for its employees.
The Lorillard Company prided itself on its hiring practices and fair treatment of African-American workers. Its story is about Peter Ray (1800-1882), a lifelong employee. He started working as an eleven-year-old errand boy in New York City, rose to foreman, and was promoted to general superintendent at the large Jersey City facility (Peterson 327).
In 1887, Lorillard constructed an annex between First and Second streets and maintained its corporate offices at 114 Water Street in New York City.
By 1910, Lorillard became part of the American Tobacco Company controlled by James Buchanan Duke (1856-1925) of Greensboro, NC. In 1884, Duke acquired the license for an automated cigarette-rolling machine from its developer James A. Bonsack of the Bonsack Machine Company. Duke also consolidated the tobacco industry into a consortium under the American Tobacco Co. name, soon called the "tobacco trust." Lorillard, however, retained its name. It built a new factory on the Thompson estate in Jersey City's Marion section on 170 city lots to employ 4,000-to-5,000 workers. The six-story, fireproof steel and brick structure was located near the Pennsylvania, Lackawanna, Susquehanna, and Erie railroads for nationwide shipment of its products.
In 1911, the US Supreme Court found the American Tobacco Company "in restraint of trade" under the provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (the United States v. American Tobacco Co). The company was divided into the American Tobacco Company, Leggett & Meyers, and P. Lorillard, dissolved in January 1912.
Lorillard became an independent company again. It operated its "plug" factory at 111 First Street until about 1919 and its cigar factory at 104 First Street to about 1928; the latter building was destroyed by fire circa 1990. In 1905, the warehouse Butler Corporation, a distributor to independent variety stores, took over the warehouse. In 1928, J.R. Reynolds, the manufacturer of "Camel" cigarettes, took over the main Lorillard facility. By 2010, Lorillard was a 250-year-old tobacco company.
Lorillard moved its manufacturing operation from Jersey City to Greensboro, NC, in 1956. Several commercial enterprises, like storage, retail stores, and factories, took over the Jersey City facilities.
Between 1989 and 2005, the block-long warehouse at 111 First Street showed promise as an arts center for the "Historic Warehouse District" project. The former tobacco building offered artists readapted space for residences, interior space with rental studios, a commercial gallery, and the (Charles) Chamot Gallery (1996-2005). The project was short-lived as new property development at the location became more economically attractive. The warehouse was razed in 2007, and a groundbreaking for a residential tower took place on the site in 2013.
Goodwin, David. Left Bank of the Hudson: Jersey City and the Artists of 111 First Street. New York: Fordham University Press, 2017.
Industries of New Jersey, Hudson, Passaic, and Bergen Counties. New York: Historical Publishing Co., 1883.
James, Rick. "Warehouse Historic District; Jersey City, New Jersey." Text copyright © 2003-04 Rick James. (46 pp)
Jersey City of To-Day, Its History, People, Trades, Commerce, Institutions and Industries, Hudson County, New Jersey America. Ed. Walter G. Muirhead. Jersey City, NJ: Walter G. Muirhead, 1910.
Kaulessar, Ricardo. "The Last of 111 First Street." Jersey Reporter 15 June 2007.
Peterson, Carla L. Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.
