Edmund McIlhenny
| Edmund McIlhenny | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1815 Hagerstown, Maryland, United States |
| Died | November 25, 1890 Avery Island, Louisiana, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Years active | 1868–1890 |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Eliza Avery |
Edmund McIlhenny (/ˈmækəlhɛni/; 1815 – 1890) was an American businessman and manufacturer who invented Tabasco brand pepper sauce.
Born in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1815, Edmund McIlhenny moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, around 1840, finding work in the Louisiana banking industry. He was of Irish and Scottish descent, his great grandparents immigrated to America from County Donegal. By the eve of the American Civil War, he had acquired a small fortune and became an independent bank owner.
On June 30, 1859, he married Mary Eliza Avery. They had eight children.
During the Civil War, McIlhenny fled with his in-laws, the Avery family, to Texas, where he served as a civilian employee of the Confederate army, first as a clerk in a commissary office, then as a financial agent for the paymaster.
The South's economic collapse after its defeat ruined McIlhenny, who now lived with his in-laws in their plantation house on Avery Island, Louisiana. It was there that McIlhenny tended the family garden, where, according to tradition, he grew a variety of fruits and vegetables, including tabasco peppers.
Between 1866 and 1868, McIlhenny — probably inspired by an earlier sauce introduced by New Orleans-area entrepreneur Maunsel White — experimented with making a sauce from the peppers in the Avery family garden. In 1868 he grew his first commercial pepper crop, and the next year sold the first bottles of his new product, which he called Tabasco brand pepper sauce.
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