*Tobacco Farm*

                    How Alexander High School came to be involved with Wetstone Tobacco Farm. 

                                  The following are events that I am pretty sure happened.

*About 1942, during WWII, Alcorn College and Harry Wetstone found out about each other.  A number of Alcorn students came north during the summer, for a number of summers, to work, and lived on the farm we then had in Ellington, CT. I think that Dr. Alexander was somehow involved. I believe I did meet him once. The time line is quite vague to me. There may have been other schools involved until Mr. Buie became principal of Alexander High School. I think he picked the students and that occurred until the last crop we grew in 1976. I think age allows me to be a bit vague.

*The tobacco we grew was used in the manufacture of cigars. Our tobacco was sold entirely to Consolidated Cigar Co. They made Dutch Masters, El Producto and other brands. They also had their own tobacco fields and in the fall of 1976 they told us they would not be buying tobacco in the future, but using their own. By this time Marshall and I were handling the business  and since there was never a need for a selling organization, and we were not equipped to start one,  it was decided to stop growing altogether and sell the equipment. It was a very sudden and traumatic decision for all of us.

                           Excerpts from an e-mail submitted by Norden Wetstone(former owner). May 9, 2009