Transactions of the Connecticut Agricultural Society for the year 1856
A correspondent reporting in Transactions of the Connecticut Agricultural Society for the year 1856 stated that the first cigar manufactured in the United States was made in South Windsor by Mrs. Prout, the wife of a Virginian, who had been recruited to assist in the “plug and twist” tobacco business. Wives and daughters on neighboring farms also began making cigars. In 1810, Solomon Viets started a cigar factory in Suffield and his brother, Roswell, one in South Windsor. Horace Filley also established a cigar making business in 1810, probably on the family farm.