One of the more interesting tidbits of local Donegal lore that James Fleming told us about concerned the existance of a cigar factory on the site near where his engineering plant now rests. St. Johnstown is located on a bend in the Foyle and goods can not be shipped from any place further inland. It was a market town during the 1700's and one of the businesses consisted of the manufacture of cigars. Where did the tobacco come from? Virginia? Who was sent from the area to make the necessary arrangments and secure the goods? Donegal merchants? Do we know any merchant families from Donegal who came in the 1700's to Virginia? This speculation only makes it from the plausable to the possible. Pobable and proven are a long way off yet it provides for good mental gymnastics to ponder on what we know. Some of our ancestors left this very spot at the correct time in history and came to precisely the place where tobacco is grown and they brought with them the merchantile tradtion that went back as far as the 1500's in Stirling and continued even up to the founding of the first store in Knoxville in the early 1800's. That is a lot of coincidence. Regards, Robert Cowan Merchant Man