History of Wexford County, MI. Compiled by John H. Wheeler Published in 1903 by B. F. Bowen Biography Page 90 - 92

WELLINGTON W. CUMMER

Wellington W. Cummer, one of the men whose activities have had to do with the advancement of Cadillac as a municipality and who has contributed generously to those things which were for the betterment of his home place, was born on a farm near Toronto, Canada, on the 21st day of October, 1846, -fifty-seven years ago, his parents being Jacob and Mary Ann Cummer. His early boyhood days until 1860, when the family removed from the farm to Newaygo village in Newaygo county, Michigan, were passed in the district schools near his father's home and in Newaygo he continued his studies in the village high school. This course was followed by further instruction in a grammar school in Waterdown, near Hamilton, Ontario, supplemented by a commercial course in the Bryant & Stratton Business College in Toronto, his graduation there from taking place in 1864, at the age of eighteen years. Jacob Cummer was a flouring miller, as well as a farmer, in Canada, and he continued in milling for several years after coming to Michigan, in conjunction with timbering and lumbering.. In these activities he was assisted by his son, Wellington W. Cummer, whose business career began in Newaygo, the latter's aggressive qualities as a conservative man of commerce combining successfully with his father's years of experience. Saw and, stave mills were operated by Jacob, assisted by Wellington W. Cummer, in Newaygo until 1863, when they removed to Croton. In this village they operated a flouring-mill and were dealers in camp supplies for five years. Cedar Springs, in Kent county, followed Croton, and for two years the father and the son engaged in the buying and selling of lumber. It was in Morley, in Mecosta. county, where the Cummers began their careers as lumbermen. Wellington W. Cummer and his uncle, J. Walter Cummer, built a mill in Morley and manufactured lumber for Jacob Cummer & Son, a co-partnership composed of Jacob and Wellington W. Cummer, the latter firm owning the land, the stumpage and the lumber. These timbering and lumbering operations were, of course, in those days, exclusively in pine. Cadillac became the home of the Cummers -Jacob and Wellington W.-in 1876, and it was in this city that they entered upon that career which has carried the name of Cummer, synonymous with honesty and integrity, into nearly every civilized country in the world. In 1876 Wellington W. Cummer manufactured line lumber for Jacob Cummer & Son. This partnership and agreement ended in 1892, when the firm's timber holdings were exhausted and Jacob Cummer retired from active participation, in timbering and lumbering. During several of these years, too, Wellington W Cummer was a member of the firm of Blodgett, Cummer & Diggins, Cummer & Diggins manufacturing pine for Blodgett, Cummer & Diggins. Mr. Cummer also organized the Cummer Lumber Company in 1882, the members thereof being Wellington W. Cummer and Harvey J. Hollister, and James M. Barnett, of Grand Rapids, with office headquarters in Cadillac, and this firm, too, engaged in the manufacture of pine until 1893, when the corporation was dissolved. Cummer & Diggins (Wellington W. Cummer and Delos F. Diggins) were succeeded by Cummer, Diggins & Company, the new partner being William I.. Saunders, and this firm is now operating in Cadillac in pine and hardwood, and is also manufacturing chemicals in one of the most complete chemical plants in the United States. Wellington W. Cummer organized, in 1892, the year when he began his larger operations in timber and lumber outside of his home city, The Cummer Company and succeeded Lakies & Collins in Norfolk. Virginia, in the manufacture of short leaf pine. Wellington W. and Jacob Cummer, Edward C. Fosburgh, who was for several years identified with the Cummer interests in Cadillac, James M. Barnett, Harvey J. Hollister and Mac George Bundy were the incorporators of The Cummer Company in Norfolk. This incorporation remained in existence for nine yearsuntil 1902 –and became one of the largest operators in short leaf pine in the southern country. It was succeeded in 1902 by the Fosburgh Lumber Company, of which Mr. Fosburgh is the president and the general manager. In 1896, seven years ago, Mr. Cummer, who in the meantime had become financially interested in Florida timber, built two band (single cutting) saw-mills in the city of Jacksonville, the metropolis of the Flower state, and entered upon the manufacture of lumber under the firm name of the Cummer Lumber Company, the partners now being Jacob Cummer, Wellington W. Cummer, Arthur G. Cummer and Waldo E. Cummer. Fire destroyed the Jacksonville plant in 1897, a saw-mill, a planing-mill, four large dry kilns, lumber sheds, tramways, and six million feet of timber, ready for the market, being wiped out of existence by the flames. It is estimated that the value of the property destroyed was one hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars, and on this property the insurance was one hundred and ten thousand dollars, a net loss of fifty-two thousand dollars. Rebuilding operations immediately followed the fire in 1897, E. P. Allis, of Milwaukee, who is now a member of the Allis- Chalmers Company, supplying all the machinery. Two (double-cutting) band mills are included in the rebuilt plant in Jacksonville, which now has a productive capacity of forty-two per cent in excess of the plant destroyed by the fire, and it is probably one of the largest lumbering plants in the country south of the Mason and Dixon line. Mr. Cummer's activities in the south have not been confined to the mammoth Jacksonville plant, but have permeated other lines of industrial affairs. He built the Jacksonville & Southwestern Railway-out of Jacksonville-in 1899 for the carrying of logs and timber for the Cummer Lumber Company. This railway is eighty-eight miles in length. It was at first operated solely for the Cummer Lumber Company, but its value to the section of Florida through which its trains passed necessitated an equipment for a passenger business, and it is now operated for both freight and passengers. C. W. Chase and associates, of Gainesville, Florida, became the owner of the Jacksonville & Southwestern Railway in 1903, only a few weeks ago. Mr. Cummer is a member of The Cummer Company, organized in 1903 in Jacksonville, Florida, the charter of the Norfolk Company being dissolved, and W. W. Cummer & Sons, organized in 1903, in Jacksonville, Florida. Jacob Cummer and W. W. Cummer and the latter's two sons, Arthur G. and Waldo E. Cummer, are the members of The Cummer Company, and W. W. Cummer and his two sons are the partners in W. W. Cummer & Sons. Both of these firms are heavily interested in southern timbers, The Cummer Company owning two hundred and twenty-five million feet of cypress and one hundred million feet of pine, and W. W. Cummer & Sons owning one hundred and seventy-five million feet of cypress and several large tracts of pine, all in Florida. Mr. Cummer has, at various times, been financially interested, too, in co-partnership with other capitalists in southern timbers in states other than Florida, but his operations are now almost entirely confined to the country tributary to the Jacksonville plant. Mr. Cummer's interests in Cadillac include his membership in the firm of Cummer, Diggins & Company, operating in hardwood and in chemicals, and his ownership of the Cummer Electric Light Company and the Cadillac Water Company plants, these two latter representing an investment approximating two hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Cummer built the electric light plant in 1888 and succeeded H. N. Green in 1881 in the ownership of the water plant. Both of these plants are under the superintendency and management of George D. Westover, and both are modern and complete in equipment. Cummer, Diggins & Company own and operate a saw-mill, a planing-mill and a chemical plant, and are large producers of hardwood lumber and flooring and chemicals. Mr. Cummer was married, on the 11th day of October, 1872, to Miss Ada M. Gerrish, the daughter of Nathaniel and Caroline Gerrish. Mr. and Mrs. Cummer are the parents of one daughter, Mabel C. Cummer, and two sons, Arthur G. and Waldo E. Cummer. Both of the sons are interested with their father in his various business enterprises, and both are capable, successful and progressive young business men. Although Mr. Cummer's life from boyhood has been a busy one and his operations have been large and have permeated nearly all sections of his adopted country, he has been liberal and generous in his contributions of time and money to public affairs and charitable and benevolent purposes, never forgetting that the highest type of citizenship is that which is mindful of home, friend, neighbor and country. Mr. Cummer's public service as an official includes a term as mayor of Cadillac, several years as an alderman, eight years as a school inspector, as a presidential elector in 1888 from the ninth congressional district, his vote being cast for Benjamin Harrison, and six yearsfrom 1895 to 1901-as a member of the board of trustees for the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, the latter appointment coming from Governor John T. Rich. In these positions Mr. Cummer served acceptably, honorably and satisfactorily, his business experiences and his interest in public affairs making him a valuable servant of the people. In political sympathies Mr. Cummer is a Republican, and the political party to which he owes allegiance has found him a loyal, earnest and persistent worker in the ranks, helpful in counsel and generous and willing in effort. Jacksonville became the legal residence of Mr. Cummer and his family in 1902, the plants in that city, the Jacksonville & Southwestern Railway and Mr. Cummer s timber interests not only requiring, but demanding, his personal attention and direction. In Jacksonville, Mr. Cummer identified himself with public affairs and interested himself in benevolences and charities and all those things which contribute to the weal and welfare of a community. Mr. Cummer is the vice-president of the Jacksonville Board of Trade, an organization of three hundred leading business men, the strongest organization of its kind in all the south, and the organization is now erecting a building, for itself which is to cost fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Cummer was also selected, in 1903, for a membership on the board of trustees of the Jacksonville schools, a position of importance and influence in that its work prepares the boys and girls of today - the men and women of tomorrow -for citizenship in the greatest republic under the shining sun. He is also a trustee of the Carnegie Library Association now erecting a fifty-thousand dollar building. This, in brief, is the story of the life of a successful Cadillac business man, who, through all the changing years of turmoil and strife, the years of struggle in small things and the years of triumph in large things, has carried the family name in honor, has retained his self-respect, has forgotten not the duties devolving upon him as a citizen, as a husband and as a father. Such a life as this is an inspiration to the young men upon whose shoulders will fall the burdens of tomorrow. Mr. and Mrs. Cummer have always interested themselves in worthy benevolences, and in Cadillac have established and maintained an institution which will preserve the names in kindly remembrance long after the imposing monument and the costly mausoleum have crumbled into dust and passed from the minds of men. Appreciating the importance of education and the further fact that its advantages are necessarily sometimes withheld from many children, Mrs. Cummer, several years ago, decided to establish a kindergarten in her home city. Mrs. Cummer was assisted by Mr. Cummer in her plans for the children of Cadillac, and in 1895 the school was opened, with a corps of expert teachers in charge. Mr. and Mrs. Cummer afterwards built an addition to the First Congregational church for the kindergarten, and supplied it with a complete equipment for the training -manual and mental - of the little boys and girls and their preparation for the higher studies in the public schools: Three teachers and one voluntary assistant are now employed in this kindergarten, and on the membership roll are the names of nearly one and a half hundred of children. Instruction in this school is without money and without price and its usefulness in the city is recognized and appreciated by all classes and within its walls the children of the poor and the rich sit side by side, forgetting the inequalities of social conditions, and receive the training which is to assist them in after years in the inevitable struggle for place and power in the American republic. It is a worthy benefaction, is the free kindergarten established and maintained by Mr. and Mrs. Cummer, and as a monument to their helpful lives will be more enduring than a shaft of marble or pyramid of stone. Some idea of Mr. Cummer's present operations may be gained through the statement that three hundred and seventy-five men are on the Cummer, Diggins & Company payroll in Cadillac and that four hundred and twenty-five men are on the Cummer.Lumber Company's payroll in Jacksonville., Florida. In his relations with his employes Mr. Cummer is kindly, courteous, and interested in their welfare. Their personal plans and ambitions have always appealed to him and he has always been willingly helpful to them in whatever they have entered upon as a means of advancing themselves or in preparing themselves for better things in life.