Welcome to Cliftondale: Charles Sweetser and several others helped turn “the rich side of town” into “the Cigar Capital of the Country”

By Janice K. Jarosz

  (Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a series of articles about the upcoming “Open House” event set for the first weekend in May at the old Cliftondale School – now known as the MEG – at 54-48 Essex St., Saugus.)

  Las Vegas put Nevada on the map; Hollywood put California on the map; and snuff and cigars put Cliftondale on the map!

Charles Sweetser III was born in Cliftondale, originally known as Sweetser’s Corner, and died in Saugus, but between those years, his snuff and tobacco business, along with others in the same trade, built the “rich side of town.”

Mr. Sweetser’s father, William Sweetser Jr., established the first tobacco business in Cliftondale, and in 1820, Mr. Sweetser III purchased a snuff mill and began producing cigars and snuff over a shop on Lincoln Avenue with an agreeably exotic sign, “West India Goods.” Other Cliftondale men – Copp, Raddin, Danforth, Trull, Waitt and Bond – also joined in the tobacco business, adding to the wealth, and Cliftondale quickly became known as the “Cigar Capital of the Country.”

In 1839, Sweetser was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives and served a second term in 1851.

The rich and patriotic businessmen of Cliftondale donated property to build the Methodist and Congregational Churches, three brick elementary schools – the Sweetser, named after the Sweetser family, the Cliftondale, originally named the Bond, and the Armitage, named in honor of Miss Laura F. Armitage, a faithful schoolteacher. The Cliftondale School, now known as the Marleah Graves School (MEG) and Armitage still stand today.

Sweetser story at a glance

Charles Sweetser III

Birth: about 1793-1794, Saugus, Mass.

Death: In Saugus, July 24, 1865.

Burial: Riverside Cemetery.