. . . While the wealth of the deceased (Gilmer) will today amount to more than a million dollars, he came to America like the most of the sons of Ireland without a dollar, and he is one of the few who became immensely rich in the timber business. . . .
Despite his wealth, Gilmer lost five sawmills to fires at Orange , the first one burning in 1869 and the last one burning in 1899.24 In addition he lost "five loaded lumber schooners in storms along the Texas coast," as well as one cotton schooner captured while running the Union blockade. In addition to the five sawmills that burned, he also lost in the fires "millions of feet of lumber, in all aggregating approximately the value of a million dollars."25
An early article of 1871 noted that: ". . .Mr. A. Gilmer has launched his new schooner from the ship yard of Linford and Co. . . .She is as handsome boat as there is in the trade and is an honor to her builders. . ."26
During his lifetime, Gilmer built around fifteen lumber schooners.
His first timber venture came in 1867 when he bought a two-thirds interest in James Woods sawmill, which stood on the Sabine River, where later the Orange Lumber Company sawmill would be built. The little sawmill could cut 7,000 feet of "boards and scantlings" during a work day of 14 or 15 hours, but it could cut crossties at the rate of 10,000 feet a day. The owners paid the sawyer $2.50 a day, but in that Reconstruction age, in addition to the sawing, the sawyer "filed the saw and kept the engine in repair, laced belts whenever they broke. . .(and) looked after the sorting and piling of the lumber." The little sawmill burned down at midnight on April 1, 1869.27
Woods was very dejected after the fire because they had no insurance, and everything that he owned had been invested in the mill. He told Gilmer, "Sandy, I'm wiped out!"
"Forget it, Jim," Gilmer responded. "We'll build a bigger and better mill than it was on Conway's Bayou, where we'll have plenty storage room for a year's supply of logs. And you'll still have a one-third interest by letting a share of your profits go each month to pay for it. That way, you'll get square on your feet again and owe no man a cent!"
The next day, Gilmer wrote C. B. Lee and Co. of Galveston and told them to send Gilbert McDonald, that company's expert boilermaker and machinist, who would repair the damaged boiler and engine and re-erect them once more on Conway's Bayou. W. H. Bell of Galveston, who represented a Cincinnati sawmill manufacturer, arrived in Orange to sell Gilmer a single circular mill of latest design. Bell even guaranteed his mill would cut 15,000 feet a day, or it would cost Gilmer nothing. The latter turned to Woods and inquired, "What do you think of the deal, Jim?"
"Sandy, it's your money!" the partner responded, "So it's for you and Bell to decide what to do! My guess is you'll get a sawmill fer nuthin, 'cause there never was a mill made that can cut 15,000 feet from the logs we got on this river!" (In 1865, the Page circular sawmill was designed only for the second-growth timber of the Eastern Seaboard. Its 54-inch blade would choke down in any logs larger than sixteen inches.)
The next return trip of Gilmer's schooner from Galveston brought back Bell, his crew of men, and his new sawmill to be erected on Conway's Bayou. Weeks and months later, the day arrived to saw the first timber, and by 3 o'clock in the afternoon, only 11,000 feet had been sawn when "some of the journals got hot and the mill had to be stopped to correct bearings and adjust idlers." Woods laughed again and predicted that they had just acquired a new sawmill for nothing. The next day, Bell began again and by sundown, he and his men had cut 15,000 feet of lumber with ease. So Gilmer, realizing that Bell had won the bet, wrote him a check drawn on Ball, Hutchings, Sealy and Company of Galveston.
Eventually the little Conway Bayou sawmill's cut, with edgers added, swelled to 20,000 feet a day and to 25,000 feet on crossties. In January, 1877, Woods and Gilmer sold out to Charles H. Moore, a lumber dealer of Galveston, and Eberle Swinford of Orange. Woods moved to Newton County, where he soon died, but Gilmer promptly built a new shingle mill for himself on the Sabine River.28
Early in 1877, the Galveston Daily News, in an article captioned "The Sabine Trade," casually announced that:29
. . . We learn that C. H. Moore of Galveston and Eberle Swinford have purchased the mill and lumber interests of Mr. A. Gilmer, one of the largest mill owners of Orange. Messrs. (H. J.) Lutcher and (G. B.) Moore, and Mr. T. A Rathwell, all of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, representing some of the largest sawmill interests in Central Pennsylvania, have been traveling for the past week among our pineries on the Neches, Angelina, and Sabine rivers, and are well-pleased with the quantity and quality of pine. They think of coming to Texas. . . .
Even a century in retrospect, the writer feels inclined to advise that editor that "Messrs. Lutcher and Moore" finally quit thinking about the proposition and arrived in Orange to stay!
In addition to his role as lumberman, Alexander Gilmer was one of the six largest merchants in Orange.30 He immediately built a modern shingle mill, and by August, 1877, was shipping an average of 800,000 shingles weekly.31 During the census year ending July 1, 1880, the Schedule V census, Products of Industry, reveals the following statistics:32
Alexander Gilmer Shingle Mill, Orange, Texas. Capitalization: $35,000; employees: 35 men throughout year; daily hours worked: 9 in winter, 11 in summer; daily wages: skilled, $3.00, unskilled $1.50; annual wages paid: $10,500; months in operation: 12; equipment: two 4-gang saws, 1 circular saw; 3 boilers, one 150-horsepower steam engine; raw materials and value: cypress logs worth $15,000, mill supplies worth $500; product: 14,000,000 shingles; product value: $32,900; origin of logs: swamps of Sabine River--mill did no logging, but shipped shingles on its own schooners.
Around January, 1882, Gilmer leased his shingle mill to Sheriff G. W. Michael, who had just recovered from flesh wounds from buck shot received during the Orange riot and assassination attempt of the previous August.33 Early in December, 1882, the A. Gilmer shingle mill burned to the ground with a loss of $35,000, but the mill carried a $15,000 fire insurance policy. Sheriff Michael managed to save all lumber at the mill, along with 5,000,000 shingles which were stacked near the mill.34
After the burning of the Gilmer shingle mill, the owner replaced it with a lumber mill and operated it himself thereafter. The following description of Alexander Gilmer appeared in a Galveston newspaper in 1887, as follows:35
. . . When Mr. A. Gilmer, the owner of one of our largest lumber mills, came to our city, it was a mere village of some fifty or 100 inhabitants. He was little more than a boy and was almost penniless, but not waiting for an easy position to be offered him, he went to work at some of the hardest work known to lumbermen - that is, running timber on the river and making hand-made shingles. . . .Mr. Gilmer began from the first to accumulate property about him, and before he was many years in Orange, he was one of our leading merchants. Some ten years ago, he built a most magnificent mill on the site of the present one. About five years ago, that mill was burned to the ground, but Mr. Gilmer at once rebuilt his mill, which today is one of the grandest lumber manufactories in the South. Mr. Gilmer's mill furnishes employment to some 65 or 75 men and cuts from 75,000 to 80,000 feet per day. . . .
An article of 1888 noted that Gilmer's mill was making about 40,000 shingles daily in addition to lumber.36 A year later, a New Orleans correspondent visited Orange and observed that:37
. . . A. Gilmer, soon after the first attempt of D. R. Wingate, built his now famous mill. Like all of his predecessors, Mr. Gilmer's first mill was small and unpretentious, and probably its cost would not have exceeded $15,000. Like the Wingate mill, this one was destined to burn. Undaunted by his great loss, Mr. Gilmer immediately rebuilt and the present Gilmer mill is rated as one of the best in Texas, and is probably worth $100,000. It cuts about 90,000 feet daily. . . .
Beginning in 1889, Alexander Gilmer began acquiring large acreages of timber, at first in north Orange County. In 1890 he became a large stockholder, along with J. G. and G. W. Smyth, when the Sabine Tram Company was organized in South Newton County, and the first tram company town and headquarters, Laurel (Deweyville was the second), was named for Gilmer's daughter, Laura.38
In 1891, a Galveston editor took note once more of a scene that could only have occurred on the matchless Sabine River, observing that:39
. . . Once more Orange was treated to a spectacle last Wednesday which made its oldest inhabitants rub their hands with glee. . . .Eight schooners, among them several three-masters with all their canvas spread, majestically sailed up the beautiful Sabine. . . .Their point of destination, with one exception, was Gilmer's Wharf. . . . It seems plausible that most of the vessels must have been a part of Gilmer's own schooner fleet.
Alexander Gilmer was to face the horrible fire demon three more times during the decade of the 1890's. On February 12, 1891, the Gilmer dry kilns caught fire and were destroyed with all contents, a $9,000 loss partially covered with a $4,000 insurance policy.40 The dry kilns were quickly replaced.
However, the loss of the dry kilns in 1891 was minute compared to the conflagration of two years later. On March 15, 1893, the Gilmer sawmill suffered a $150,000 loss by fire, the worst that Orange had ever seen up until that year. The entire mill, the dry kilns, and 5,000,000 feet of stacked lumber were consumed, and although the planing mill was heavily-damaged, it was saved through the heroic efforts of two Negro employees, who endured the intense heat while spraying streams of water on the planers and other machinery of the planing mill. The loss was partially covered by a $22,000 policy.41
Despite the immense conflagration, a net loss of $128,000, Alexander Gilmer immediately replaced it with a new double-cutting band sawmill of 100,000 feet capacity. The last Gilmer fire at Orange occurred on October 3, 1899, only one day before the big band sawmill of Dennis Call, Jr., another Orange businessman, burned at Call, Texas. If anything, the Gilmer inferno was even worse than the fire of six years earlier. Very quickly, sawmill, planing mill, dry kilns and millions of feet of stacked lumber were consumed by the flames, and it was only by the "tireless work and heroic efforts of employees and other citizens" that the D. R. Wingate Lumber Company was saved. Again the net loss was staggering, about $110,000, for Gilmer had only a $40,000 policy to cover a part of the loss of $150,000.42 A Beaumont newspaper predicted that "Sandy" Gilmer would rebuild as usual, but the newspaper was mistaken. Gilmer had had his fill of fires at Orange.
Alexander Gilmer's decision not to rebuild at Orange, however, may have been motivated more by his supply of timber there than any other reason. He soon became the president and chief stockholder of the Gilmer Lumber Company at Lemonville, about ten miles north of Orange, where he owned a 100,000 foot mill and built a standard gauge tram road that connected his mill with the new Kansas City Southern Railroad.43 Because of his 50,000-acre tract of timberlands that he owned in North Newton County, "Sandy" Gilmer's last sawmill venture in 1905 was a 100,000-foot band mill at the town of Remlig (which is Gilmer spelled backwards), in the extreme northeast corner of Jasper County, adjacent to the Sabine and Newton County lines. His son-in-law, H. S. Filson, was the superintendent of the new Remlig mill and would later supervise all Gilmer mill activities.44
Thus ended the fascinating lumber career of Alexander Gilmer although Orange would have other similar careers which follow. Gilmer died while on a voyage to New York City in July, 1906, and his body was returned to Evergreen Cemetery in Orange, where he is buried beside his wife. As one writer summed it up, he lost a million dollars to fires, schooner wrecks, and other disasters, but he still managed to acquire and leave a million-dollar estate when he died.
Used with permission.
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