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Tobacco, November 8, 1889, Vol. VIII No. 1

 

OBITUARY.

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The late Francisco Perez del Rio.

 

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Many of the older readers of Tobacco will recognize in the features of this gentleman, whose portrait we give on this page, an old-time friend and the proprietor of a famous brand of Habana cigars, whose death has just been announced from Habana, where the greater part of his eventful life had been passed.

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Early in the year, Mr. del Rio went to Spain, is was his usual custom, and his most intimate friends were unaware of any illness until they received letters bearing the sad intelligence of his sudden death in Madrid on the 21st of October last.

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For several years prior to his decease, Mr. del Rio was the oldest manufacturer of Habana and was the owner and proprietor of the La Legitimidad cigar factory.  He was by birth an Asturian, and first saw the light of day nearly seventy years ago in that province of Spain.  Early in life he migrated to Cuba in search of fame and fortune, and became the possessor of a fair share of both.  His first employment was on a plantation in the widely celebrated district of the Vuelta Abajo, where he learned the art of cultivating, preparing and packing tobacco for the markets of the world, and in all that pertains to this branch of the trade, he was an expert.  As a manufacturer of cigars, however, Mr. del Rio attained the greatest success and became best known to the importers of, and dealers in, Habana cigars, in the United States.  Shortly after this century had reached its meridian, Mr. del Rio left the Vegas of Western Cuba and went to Habana and there established the La Legitimidad cigar factory that has carried the name of its proprietor into every country in the world wherever good cigars are smoked. 

 

His life was an eventful one.

 

Twice during his career did he accumulate a fortune, which was wholly or partially lost by reverses; yet his independent and cheerful disposition carried him through each crisis without tarnishing his reputation or a loss of his buoyancy of spirit.  At the time of his death he was what may be called a rich man, both in worldly possessions and in his happy relations with his fellow man.

 

He leaves a wife and son, Francisco, who has been associated in the cigar manufacturing business for several years.  In personal traits and characteristics, Mr. del Rio was a prince among men.   Old in years, yet youthful in appearance, mature and sagacious in business, but with a broad, generous nature, full of the milk of human kindness and irrepressible cheerfulness.

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