Vigo County Historical Society
Historical Treasure Article

Historic Treasure of the Week - January 5, 1986
By Deborah Curtis
Vigo County Historical Society

"Gentlemen, you may smoke. . . ."

Historical gossip holds that England’s Queen Victoria deemed the use of tobacco an abomination and forbade its use on the royal premises during her reign.

Ironically, her son, Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, became a heavy smoker. Speculation exists that his frequent trips abroad, especially to the United States, may have been his means of indulging his tobacco habit unrestrained.

After the first royal banquet during Edward’s reign, the male guests were formally invited into the coffee room where the king is purported to have made the long-awaited announcement, "Gentlemen, you may smoke," thus ending royal opposition to tobacco. Smoking quickly became a widely accepted, although still controversial activity.

In America, of course, tobacco had been used for centuries by the natives, who introduced the practice to the first settlers. It wasn’t until after the Civil War, however, that tobacco became a leading American industry, much to the outrage of vociferous anti-tobacco societies. But the outrage couldn’t overcome the fact that Presidents Grant and Cleveland and popular authors Mark Twain and James Whitcomb Riley, publicly displayed their use of tobacco. By the late 19th century, smoking had become chic.

Cigar smoking came to be associated with the aristocratic, the prosperous and the politicians. Ladies of fashion smoked to show their sophistication.

Given the Victorian love of finery, it is no wonder that elegant tobacco accessories became popular. Ladies carried their cigarettes in slim gold cases. Matches were often carried in elaborately ornamented boxes of gold, silver and nickel.

Some of the accessories reflected more of the whimsy of the period than the elegance. Such is this week’s historical treasure--a ceramic grog humidor, circa 1890, designed to store pipe tobacco or cigars.

The green frog is dashing in his pink smoking jacket, pipe in webbed hand. The humidor is in two pieces, with the frog’s head and right arm composing the removable lid, which also serves as a reservoir to hold a piece of dampened sponge or slice of apple to keep the jar’s contents from drying out.

The humidor, which is 6 1/2 inches tall and 4 inches square to the base, was molded of poured clay, and was probably one of thousands produced. The overglaze is very thick and apparently of high quality since there is no evidence of cracking.

This humidor was owned by John Henry Viehe, owner of the "Goldmine Grocery" in Petersburg.

The frog humidor, which was donated to the Vigo County Historical Society in 1985 by Viehe’s daughter, Lucile Viehe Failing, is on display in the Victorian Parlor . The collection also includes a wide variety of other interesting tobacco accessories from the past.

The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday through Friday.