Durham, NC - Duke Homestead & Tobacco Museum - # - The Nature In Us

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Having had asthma due to cigarette smoke, and having a grandfather who died of lung cancer, tobacco is a very evil word to me. I had no interest in the museum, but the history of tobacco is displayed in some of the buildings. Visited 9/1/12.

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The Family Home - Duke Homestead - Durham, NC
Washington Duke built this house for his second wife, Artelia, in 1852. The original structure contained four rooms: 2 bedrooms upstairs and another bedroom as well as a parlor on the first floor. The family had a root cellar underneath the parlor.

Washington Duke, A Name Synonymous With the Tobacco Industry - Duke Homestead - Durham, NC
When North Carolina became the last state to secede from the Union in May 1861, Washington Duke's small farm and homestead consisted of more than 300 acres. He grew typical crops such as corn, wheat, oats and sweet potatoes, and raised cotton as a cash crop until it failed late in the 1850's, when he began cultivating bright-leaf tobacco. Drafted into the Confederate Navy in Sept. 1863, Duke was soon captured and imprisoned in Richmond, VA. He was released after the war and sent to New Bern, NC. He then walked 134 miles back to his homestead.

Early Photograph of the Duke Homestead - Durham, NC
Duke discovered that soldiers encamped here had consumed most of his stored tobacco while Generals Johnston and Sherman negotiated surrender at the nearby

Demonstration Tobacco Field - Duke Homestead - Durham, NC

First Tobacco Factory - Duke Homestead - Durham, NC
This small structure was a corn crib in which Washington Duke first started manufacturing smoking tobacco. The business began in April 1865 with the help of Washington's children. The company was called W. Duke and Sons and their first product was labeled Pro Bono Publico. The business grew rapidly and Washington soon moved production to a second factory on the property, but the foundation for that has not survived.

Third Tobacco Factory - Duke Homestead - Durham, NC
After outgrowing their second factory, the Dukes built another in 1869. The pipe tobacco manufacturing process involves beating the dry tobacco with sassafras flails to break up the leaves. It was then sifted through a fine metal sieve and packed into muslim sacks. They used this factor until 1874 when they moved from the homestead into what is now downtown Durham where they were the first to introduce machine-rolled cigarettes to the market in 1884.

The Dukes of Durham - Duke Homestead - Durham, NC
In 1869, Duke's son Brodie, began a small smoking tobacco factory within the town of Durham and took advantage of the town's railroad and tobacco market. Duke and his other sons, Buck and Ben, also moved their business there. In 1874 the Dukes began mechanical mass production of cigarettes.

Duke Home with Expansion - Duke Homestead - Durham, NC
In 1860 Washington built and expansion to the hosue which included an attached kitchen and a dining room. Prior to this expansion the Dukes would have kept their kitchen as a separate building to reduce the fire hazard.

Approaching the Tobacco Curing Barn - Duke Homestead - Durham, NC
The woodlands of the homestead were very peaceful, even though I feel as though the history of the place contains so much evil with the now known evils of tobacco. Although there were many who spoke against it before medical science caught up with the reality of it. Here's Thomas Edison's famous 1914 anti-cigarette cable to Henry Ford: Friend Ford, "The injurious agent in cigarettes comes principally from the burning paper wrapper. The substance thereby formed, is called "Acrolein." It has a violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. Unlike most narcotics this degeneration is permanent and uncontrollable. I employ no person who smokes cigarettes." Yours, Thomas A Edison

A Counterblaste to Tobacco is a treatise written by King James VI of Scotland and King James I of England in 1604, in which he expresses his distaste for tobacco smoking. As such, it is one of the earliest anti-tobacco publications. "Have you not reason then to bee ashamed, and to forbeare this filthie noveltie, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossely mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming your selves both in persons and goods, and raking also thereby the markes and notes of vanitie upon you: by the custome thereof making your selves to be wondered at by all forraine civil Nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned. A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse." — James 1604

The Family Home - Duke Homestead - Durham, NC
Washington Duke built this house for his second wife, Artelia, in 1852. The original structure contained four rooms: 2 bedrooms upstairs and another bedroom as well as a parlor on the first floor. The family had a root cellar underneath the parlor.

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