The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1886-05-07
Pennsylvanias Lumber King Gives an 49,
100000 Estate to His Nephew.

Pennsylvania's Lumber King Gives an 49,
100000 Estae to His Nephew.
Last week John Dubois, the lumber
king of Pennsylvania, filed in Clear
field an absolute deed conveying all his
property, valued at about $8,000,000,
to bis favorite nephew, John K. Dubois.
The deed bears date Jan II, 1884, so
that, although for more than two years
young John Dubois has been in his
uncle's employ, taking orders from
whatever superintendent he chanced
to be working under, he has been the
actual owner of the entire property.
Nobody knew it but himself and his
uncle. The senior Dubois, who is II
years old, has been ailing lately, and
decided to make the deed public. The
only consideration in the deed is that
John E. Dubois shall pay all debts
and fill all contracts his uncle may
make till the day of his death
His purpose in making the deed
was to make sure that his business
should go on in single and absolute
ownership, just as he had conducted it
for the period of twenty years, after
his death, and that the 800 work.
men in his employ should not be dis
tressed by the stoppage or embarrass-
ment of his enterprise. The deed
makes no mention of any of the other
heirs, of whom there are great many,
John Dubois being the only bachelor
in family Of fourteen. 1t is left en-
tirely to the conscience of John +
Dubois whether any of them shall ever
have any share in the estate or not.
The young man is about 25 years old
and unmarried. He was educated at
Chester Military Academy. t
The Pittsburg Dispatch says that
John Dubois stood easily at the head
of the lumber business of Pennsylvania.
1t is doubtful if there is any man be.
tween Maine and Michigan who owned
more timber land and cut more timber
than be did. Every year he cut and
sawed about 36,000,OO0 feet of boards,
enough to build the dwelling houses
of town of 10000 people. He owned
at the time of his death 33,OOO acres
his town of Dubois, on which there is
standing about 35O,OOO,OOO feet of
white pine lumber, besides manv mill
ion feet of hemlock. About 5000
acres of it is underlaid with a valuable
vein of coal, being on the western side
of the Reynoldsville basin.
Besides his large buildings in Pitts
Vahp
interest in tract of 10000 acres in
West Virginia, which the axe has
never touched, and large real estate in
terests in Havre de Grace and William.
sport, AT Dubois, where he has lately
lived he had mill improvements worth
S75O,OOO. When he went there. ten
or twelve years ago there were only
three houses in the town. 1t now has
1000 population.
John Dubois began life with almost
no capital, and was a raftsman or the
Susquehanna at the age of II. His
inventive genius helped him greatly.
His mills are full of his devices. When
ever he found an impediment in his
path, he invented something to over
come it. He recently recovered $780,
600 from the Baltimore and Ohio Rail
road Company for the use of his patent
for deep water foundations. The auto
matte dam which bears his name is we'll
known. He owned about fifty patents
altogether. He owned the fine hotel
and half the property In the town of
Dubois, and had just completed a new
opera house, the finest In the State
outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburg.
He got the first large start in his
fortune by investing in cheap timber
lands, and the secret of his large profits
in recent years has been the perfection
of his machinery and the variety of
his products, which erabled him to
use up all the timber he cut and avoid
waste and middlemen's profits. He
manufactured houses, and shipped them
all fitted and complete, so that hatch.
ct and nails were all that were required
to put them together at their desti-
nation. a rough pine log brought
from the woods to his mill, over his
own line of railroad, came out at the
end of the works in the shape of boxes.
boards, lath, and barrel heads. Every
scrap was turned to profit. There was
no waste except splinters and sawdust.
His works at Dubois have capacity
OF $4,000 feet of lumber, 5000 boxes,
5000 barrel heads, and 6O,OOO shingles
per day, besides hemlock mill with
capacity of 10000 feet daily, and
large tannery and machine shop. He
had farm OF 1000 acres employed
800 men, and knew every one of them.
He had been seriously i'll for several
months, and recently Agnew of Phila-
delphia, taken up to Dubois on special
train. He stayed just thirty. five min
utes. Though man of warm heart
and genial disposition, Mr.. Dubois
never married, He never used liquor
or tobacco.