Alexander Fair Cigar Company: A Legacy of Craftsmanship and Community in Brantford

Alexander Fair’s history in the cigar business is a great example of Brantford’s entrepreneurship in the late 19th century. From 1873 onwards, Fair’s cigar factory was quickly one of the biggest and most successful in Ontario, and operated throughout Canada and even England. Alexander Fair’s first business was a small grocery and liquor store on Colborne Street in Brantford’s East Ward in 1862. The good quality of his goods and continuous business encouraged him to enter the cigar business in 1873. Fair was only able to begin modestly and soon the market for his cigars outstripped his original expectations.

Fair’s cigars, both his premium and his eclecticism, made him a popular name. He produced more than 20 different brands, with some of the options being: "La Carolina," "Henry Clay," “Patience," and even small and large versions of "Punch." These were hugely popular, and Fair soon had to expand. In order to meet demand, he moved his factory to a bigger brick unit on Murray Street where he could fulfil orders arriving from around the country. The new factory on Murray Street was built to handle mass-production cigars. The factory was a two-story, five-room structure whose building front ran up Colborne Street and Murray Street with an 88ft long by 60ft high door, divided into rooms for different stages of production. The stripping room, curing room, packing room and bond room were located on the ground floor and the cigars dried on the top floor. Three experts would inspect and pack the cigars, making sure to maintain quality and consistency.

Fair’s numbers spoke for the factory as at its peak, it was making more than 120,000 cigars per month, most of them were his "Punch" and "Patience" varieties. Despite paying competitive wages, Fair had trouble securing enough skilled labour to support demand, which speaks to the success and scale of his business. The popularity of his cigars reached such a height that he could not keep up with demands. Fair’s cigars soon sold beyond Ontario and in Manitoba and England. Manitoba became such a big market that Fair even hired an agent to run a business there. Furthermore, England was also a valuable customer with Fair’s firm supplying the United Kingdom with the largest amount of Canadian cigar exports in the country at the time. In the late 1880s, Thomas J. Fair, Alexander’s nephew, bought the company and rebranded it into the T. J. Fair Company. Alexander Fair resigned but continued as a wholesale distribution agent until his death in 1903 in Baltimore, Maryland. Thomas Fair operated the firm until he too passed away in 1922 when the family firm had its final moments.

In 1923, Wm. Ward & Sons of London, Ontario thought for a time of starting up a shop in the old T. J. Fair building. But the building was demolished in 1924 and the former company eventually constructed St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church. The history of the Alexander Fair Cigar Company is one of expansion, tenacity and craftsmanship starting from humble beginnings to being one of Ontario’s biggest cigar producers. The company was successful and brought employment and industry to Brantford, making Alexander Fair a part of the city’s industrial history, and a memory of a time when Brantford was an industrial and commercial powerhouse.

References

https://history-api.brantfordlibrary.ca/Document/View/c35a2046-4306-441e-ab2f-3fade46ce2f3

Warner, Beers, & Co. (1883). The history of the County of Brant, Ontario (p. 147, 257) [PDF]. Warner, Beers, & Co.