The Gilmour Lumber Company was one of the giants of the Canadian timber industry. Their involvement in lumbering began modestly in the 1790s in the area of Glasgow, Scotland where Allan Gilmour Sr. started a small timber merchandising business. In 1804 he entered into a partnership with his cousins John and Arthur and formed Pollock, Gilmour and Company. Pollock, Gilmour and Company became ship owners and imported products in Europe and the Baltic region.
The Gilmour Lumber Company established its first Canadian branch at Douglastown, New Brunswick, near the mouth of the Miramichi River in 1812. Subsequently, Gilmour opened a sawmill in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. By the 1840s the company was split; with brothers Allan Jr., John and David operating the Quebec City branch, and a younger Allan Gilmour running the Montreal branch under the name Gilmour and Company. They established shipbuilding yards at Quebec City, and Saint John and the Miramichi region of New Brunswick. By the 1840s they commanded a fleet of 130 vessels, one of the largest shipping operations in the world.
In 1852 Gilmour and Company constructed a sawmill at the Trent Port location along the Bay of Quinte (now Trenton, Ontario). Over four decades the mill would grow to be the largest sawmill in the world. As Long and Whiteman wrote in their comprehensive study, When Giants Fall: The Gilmour Quest for Algonquin Pine: "The main sawmill stood on the south western part of the property. Two and one-half storeys high, it measured some 30 metres wide and 43 metres long. Piling grounds for lumber were situated to the east and north, and the shipping docks to the south. Railway tracks provided access to both areas from the mill. Along these horses hauled carloads of lumber."
David Gilmour
By the late 1800s most of the Scottish and Quebec branches of the Gilmour operation were closed. In 1879 David Gilmour (born in Scotland in 1851, the son of John Gilmour) at the age of just 29, took over management of the Trenton operation. Though Gilmour Lumber had operated in Trenton since 1852, David Gilmour was the first partner to take up a permanent residence there. He moved into a mansion at the top of Dundas street known as Prospect House. It boasted a commanding view of the town, the Bay of Quinte, and the mill operation at the foot of Dundas street. As Trenton's leading industrialist David Gilmour became the town's leading benefactor. In the winters he served as president of the curling and toboggan clubs. In the summers he led the cricket and rowing clubs. He donated the land for the town's first skating rink. In 1885 the Gilmour Fire Brigade Band was established, playing local functions and events across southern Ontario.
As an employer Gilmour's lumber mill was a state-of-the-art, highly mechanized operation. In 1880 the town's first telephone system was installed at the mill. In 1882 the rail line was connected to the Grand Trunk Railway. After several fires, Gilmour installed a modern sprinkler system. Gilmour owned over 700 tenement housing units for his employees. To power his operations he built one of the world's first hydro-electric plants.
Timber Auction of 1892
Like most lumber barons, Gilmour and Company received most of its product from the northern timber limits of what is now the Algonquin Park region. The trees would be felled in the forests by men living in work camps, then floated down the regional waterways of the Kawartha lake region to their final destination; the Gilmour Mill along the Trent River, at the mouth of the Bay of Quinte. From here the timber would be processed then loaded onto ships that would carry the lumber along the Saint Lawrence River to destinations in the United States and Europe.
But after 40 years of constant harvesting these limits were becoming exhausted. Part of the problem was the size of the Gilmour operation in Trenton. In the March 1888 issue of Canada Lumberman a writer commented, "You think you have big mills in the United States, but the best of them dwindle into comparative insignificance alongside of the Gilmour mill, which has a capacity of 900,000 feet per day..." The truth was that the Gilmour mill hadn't run anywhere near to full capacity in some years, and many smaller mills in the region produced more lumber, and were more profitable.