This magnet pictures an 1880s advertisement for Helme's Railroad Snuff.
The magnet features an illustration of 2 children in a country garden. The little boy, wearing short pants with red suspenders, white socks and black "baby jane" type shoes, smokes a pipe. The little girl, eating a bisquit, wears a Heidi-look dress with a pink and red skirt, black bodice and white blouse, and wears her hair up. There is a path of paved stone, a flowering shrub, wooden gate and a basket of flowers at the girls feet.
The Helme Tobacco company was founded as the Railroad Mills Snuff Mill in 1866 by a pair of brothers from New Jersey. After a few years, when George Washington Helme (1822-1893) purchased his brother's share, it was renamed. In the 1880s, Helme purchased land in Middlesex county between Spotswood and Jamesburg, and built 105 homes for his workers. In 1888 the community was granted status as a borough and Helme named it after his daughter, Oliva Antoinette, who was nicknamed Etta.
In the 1930s there were 400 Helme employees and the firm was one of the world's largest producers of snuff. At his death, Helme was reported as having been the second wealthiest man in New Jersey.
Over the years, some of Helme's products gained tremendous popularity, including such favorites as Silver Creek and Redwood Moist Snuff, Lancaster, Chattanooga Chew and Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco, and Navy, Lorillard, and Railroad Mills Dry Snuff.
Today Helme is a brand owned by Swisher International. Swisher's history with tobacco dates to 1861 when a small cigar manufacturing company was acquired in payment of a debt. It went on to become one of the world's largest cigar producers, with such powerhouse brands as King Edward and Swisher Sweets.
In 1993 Swisher moved all of the Helme operation to the Wheeling plant and closed the Helme Snuff Mill complex, leaving behind 16 buildings on 32 acres, on Helmetta's Main street.
After a decade, things are happening in Helmetta, they're going into the old folks business. A plan was approved last month to turn the Helme Snuff Mill complex into an senior citizen compound with 225 homes, retail shops and a civic building. Construction on the project starts next fall and is expected to generate $1 million in property taxes.
