Jerome Swinford
Orange, Orange County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Nov. 3, 1839 - July 13, 1906) Missouri native Jerome Swinford came to Sabine Pass in 1859 to enter the steamboat business. After serving in the Civil War, he moved to Orange where he worked in Alexander Gilmer's mill and later became a popular local merchant. An active Mason, Swinford served as mayor, school board member, and city alderman. He was also instrumental in the early planning of a ship channel at Sabine Pass. In 1888 he was elected to the Texas Legislature.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A Missouri native, Jerome Swinford came to Sabine Pass in 1859 to enter the steamboat trade and, after Civil War service, settled in Orange, where he worked in a sawmill and became a popular merchant. An active Mason, he served as mayor, alderman, and school board member, helped plan a ship channel at Sabine Pass, and won election to the Texas Legislature in 1888.
Why it matters
His life traces the arc of the Gulf Coast economy from steamboats and sawmills toward the ship channels that would remake Texas commerce.
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Related people
- · Jerome Swinford
- · Alexander Gilmer
Related events
- · Civil War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Alexander Gilmer
Orange, TX
An Irish immigrant who reached America in 1846, Alexander "Sandy" Gilmer built ships in Orange with his cousin and ran a mercantile before the Civil War, when he served the Confederacy as a blockade runner trading local cotton and lumber for scarce supplies and took part in the 1863 Battle of Sabine Pass. After the war he turned to sawmilling, and though fires destroyed four of his mills, he became one of the region's leading lumbermen, with holdings that included the town of Remlig—his name spelled backward. He died in 1906 while on business in New York.
Captain George M. Levingston
Orange, TX
Orange, Texas sat where the Sabine River meets the Gulf, and its economy floated on the boats built along that water. George M. Levingston, a licensed river captain and son of an early shipbuilder, turned decades of local shipyard experience into the Levingston Shipbuilding Company in 1933, growing it into a major Gulf Coast operation. He also gave time to public life, serving on the Orange City Council in the 1920s.
Putnam B. Curry
Orange, TX
A New York native, Putnam B. Curry moved to Galveston in 1860 and enlisted in the Confederate army, seeing action along the Texas Gulf Coast during the Civil War. After the war he married Eliza Ann Ochiltree and settled in Orange, where he opened a mercantile firm and later ran a hotel and published a newspaper. A leader in the local business community, he remained active until his death in 1910.
David Robert Wingate
Orange, TX
David Robert Wingate moved his family from Mississippi to a large East Texas cotton plantation in 1852, having built his fortune in sawmilling. During the Civil War he supplied lumber from his Sabine Pass mill to build Fort Sabine and other Confederate posts, and Federal troops burned his home and business in retaliation. Undeterred, he rebuilt in Orange after the war, invested in a sawmill, took up rice farming, and served as county judge.