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Note: N2839 FRANCIS M. GILMER
Francis M. Gilmer was a model man. He had all the qualities that it takes to constitute the perfect gentleman. He was a good citizen, good neighbor, and good friend. he was a kind husband and father, and an indulgent master to his slaves. The good book says, train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it, and Mr. Gilmer came as near complying with that injunction as a man could do, as was demonstrated by his children. They were moral, sober and religious. He had four sons—if any daughters, they are not remembered. W. B. his oldest son married a Miss McGehee. She lived only a few days after marriage; he then married Lucy Early, a daughter of John Gilmer, a relative. Another son, Dr. Frank, married a Miss Green, and George N. married the daughter of Morgan Smith of Lowndes county.
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Note: N2843 Francis Merriweather Gilmer
Francis Merriweather Gilmer was another migrant. He came to Alabama about 1830. In 1860, his five plantations in Lowndes and Montgomery Counties included, according to census report, 3,550 acres of improved and 7,240 acres of unimproved land, and were valued together at $151,800. His personal property was appraised at an additional $116,421. His farm machinery was valued at $3,445. He owned twenty-four horses, eighty-two mules, forty-nine milk cows, twenty-one oxen, 131 other cattle, 213 sheep, and 884 hogs. His labor force numbered 232 slaves.
Gilmer's plantations unquestionably had some of the best soil in the state, as the quantity and variety of the crops he raised amply attest. In 1860, 16,000 bushels of corn and 657 bales of cotton were produced on four of his plantations. Three of the plantations raised also 640 pounds of wool. Other products, such as sweet potatoes, butter, peas, beans, hay, honey, beeswax, are mentioned here and there in the reports, but, since they are not given consistently for all the plantations, it is impossible to judge whether or not they were produced in large quantities.
Gilmer's activities as a planter left him time for other interests, railroads chief among them. He was instrumental in organizing, in the 1850's, the company which built the South and North Railroad, now part of the Louisville and Nashville system, between Decatur and Montgomery. He was the first president of that company, and his slaves provided much of the labor for the construction of the road.
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