When was the first friction match brought over the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico? That is an interesting question I have been trying to answer for some time.
Prior to the introduction of matches, New Mexicans wanting to start a fire had to use the cumbersome flint and steel. When the two were struck together, they produced sparks that could be caught in tinder and fanned into a flame.
Handy friction matches began to
appear on the American frontier in the latter 1820s. One report mentions
that they were being used in central Missouri, at the head of the Santa
Fe Trail, by 1829.
Soon after that, a stray traveler probably carried the first match overland to New Mexico.
Soon after that, a stray traveler probably carried the first match overland to New Mexico.
I wrote about this subject in my book, The Old Trail to Santa Fe,
published years ago. Therein, I said this: “In 1864 a wholesale grocer
in Leavenworth, Kan., filled an order for New Mexico merchant José
Albino Baca at Las Vegas that included a box of matches at 75 cents.”
The high cost of transportation
by ox wagon made them expensive, indeed a luxury item. That was the
first documented reference to the importation of matches that I had
seen.
I stated in the book that I fully expected earlier mentions to turn up sooner or later. Now one has.
I received a letter from Michael
Long of St. Louis, a researcher and author. He was writing a biography
of the famous German botanist George Englemann who settled at St. Louis
in 1833 and helped establish the Missouri Botanical Garden.
George’s name is attached to one
of the two spruces that grow in the mountains of New Mexico, the
Engelmann spruce. (The other is the Colorado blue spruce.) He was an
early expert on conifers.
Long in his letter said that he had recently read my Old Trail to Santa Fe and noted the section on matches. He enclosed a letter written from Santa Fe in 1846 by August Fendler to Engelmann.
It seems that Engelmann was
paying several men going out west to collect botanical specimens for him
and ship them back to St. Louis. One of those was young Fendler, also a
German immigrant, who accompanied Col. Sterling Price’s army on its
march to Santa Fe.
During his first weeks in New
Mexico, Fendler collected seeds, cacti, tree branches, fruits, plants
and mosses. He packed them in barrels for shipment east by freight
wagon.
By November, he was running out
of money, as he complained to his sponsor, because everything was so
expensive here in the Territory.
Writing to Englemann, he
suggested they start up a small business as a sideline to bring in some
cash. “You will probably smile,” he elaborated, “if I tell you the
business is nothing else but the manufacture of matches.”
“A small box of matches is being
sold here for 6 1/4 cents, the demand is great and reserves in local
stores are exhausted. By entering into this, we would be able to take
care of most of our expenses.”
It is clear that Fendler thought
the going New Mexico price of 6 1/4 cents per matchbox was outrageous,
two or three times the price in St. Louis. 
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