“My Last Cigar”
The beguiling story of the most popular American college song of the late-19th century
The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society has a library of over 300 books on the manufacture, use, and promotion of tobacco from the 19th century to the present. Most were acquired from Benjamin Rapaport, a prolific author on pipes and the foremost authority on antiquarian tobacco books. Other books were donated by Franklin Dunn from the collection of his late brother Tom Dunn, an expert on pipes. In the spring of 2023, while perusing a volume from 1888 of TOBACCO, a weekly British tobacco trade publication for importers, exporters, manufacturers, and retailers, I was intrigued by an article reprinted from a Chicago newspaper about a song, “My Last Cigar,” whose popularity was exceeded only by “Home Sweet Home.” As I looked for more information about it, I found several lovely recordings, two of which are included here. I also learned that a few years ago, the Reverend Dan Morrison, a member of the Doylestown, Pennsylvania-based fraternal society, Rascals, Rogues, and Rapscallions, devoted to scholarly research on obscure topics, set out to find the origins of the song that the group sings at the close of every meeting. This exhibition features his fascinating story and includes a gallery of cigar labels and advertisements from the Center’s collection.
Alan Blum, MD
Director, The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
“‘IT WAS MY LAST CIGAR.’
A SONG WRITTEN IN NEW HAVEN AND ALMOST AS POPULAR AS ‘HOME, SWEET HOME.'”
Article in TOBACCO (London: “A MONTHLY TRADE JOURNAL FOR THE Importer, Exporter, Manufacturer, and Retailer of Tobacco.”)
Reprinted from The Chicago Mail
May 1, 1888
Second-Hand Smoke: James Maurice Hubbard and the Search for the Elusive Author and Composer of America’s Second Favorite Song (31 pages)
Written by Rev. Daniel Paul Morrison, M.A., M.Div.
Fellow of the Doylestown Institute
Published by King of Patagonia Press
Bryn Athlyn, Pennsylvania
2019
The Reverend Dr. Daniel Paul Morrison of Huntingdon Valley Presbyterian Church in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, relates his fascinating quest to discover the author of “My Last Cigar,” one of the most popular songs in the US and Europe in the late-19th century. (11:34)
“It was an 1860 Amherst College student songbook [Songs of Amherst] that provided the crucial clue…”
Lyrics, “My Last Cigar”
In SONGS OF AMHERST (8-page excerpt)
Published by the Class of ’62
Northampton, Massachusetts: Metcalf & Company
1860
“Joy and sadness, turned to song,
Still keep ringing, loud and long.”
–Goethe
[The complete songbook is available here:
https://archive.org/details/songsamherst00phipgoog/page/n34/mode/2up]
“My Last Cigar” (03:37)
From “SONGS, BALLADS & HYMNS IN HONOUR OF THE CIGAR”
Huelgas Ensemble
“My Last Cigar” (03:17)
From “Songs of the Civil War”
The 97th Regimental String Band
A selection of cigar boxes and cigar labels from the collection of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
Alan Blum, MD comments on one of the most fascinating items in the collection of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society. (01:34)
