August 10, 1917 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



35 



M. Nickey was one of the most proiniucnt lumbermen of Memphis, and 

 was well known wherever hardwood lumber is bought and sold. He gave 

 practically thirty-eight years of his life to the lumber industry, and he 

 applied himself with such skill and energy that he amassed a fortune 

 before his retirement from active identification with the lumber business 

 .ibout two years ago. He underwent an operation at .Johns Hopkins 

 Hospital at Baltimore in 191.5 and never 'fully recovered therefrom. 



Mr. Nickey was bom in Allen county, near Ft. Wayne, Ind., in 1844, 

 and was seventy-three years old. He is survived by his widow, by two 

 sons, S. M. and W. E. Nickey, and by a daughter, Mrs. Alice Sanders of 

 Los Angeles. 



He received a public school education in which the blue-back speller was 

 an Important part of the curriculum, and then began carving out his 

 fortune by opening up a tract of 160 acres of land in the then wilderness 

 of Indiana. He i-aised all sorts of agricultural products on this farm, 

 but he gave an increasing amount of attention each year to the growing 

 of live stock, in which he met with marked success. In 1.SS2 he began 

 his connection with the hardwood lumber business under the partnership 

 of Gandy & Nicke.v, which continued for eleven years, during which time 

 hardwood lumber was manufactui'cd in considerable volume. In 1893 he 

 formed the A. B. Nickey & Sons Company at Auburn, Ind., in which his 

 two sons were associated with him, and continued the manufacture of 

 hardwoods. In 1896 the company removed its headquarters to Princeton, 

 Ind., and established hardwood mills at Princeton, Huntingburg and 

 Evansville. as well as at Owensboro and Calhoun, Ivy. 



In 1902 Mr. Nickey. together with his two sons, organized the Green 

 River Lumber Company at Calhoun, Ky., taking in U. S. Lambert and 

 John S. Dickson as stockholders. Mr. Nickey was president of this 

 firm, which removed to Memphis in 1906, and which established the first 

 mill in this city belonging to the Nickey interests. In 1909 Mr. Nickey 

 and his sons came to Memphis, and in 1910 they organized the Nickey 

 Brothers Hardwood Lumber Company, which established a big band mill 

 and veneer plant here. In 1912 Nickey Brothers, Inc., succeeded the 

 Nickey Brothers Hardwood Lumber Company. Meantime the old firm of 

 Nickey & Sons Company began liquidation, which has just about been 

 completed. 



After removing to Memphis Mr. Nickey and his associates greatly 

 increased their holdings of timberlands in Arkansas and Mississippi, and 

 strengthened their grasp on the hardwood lumber industry of this section. 

 They became increasingly prominent factors as the years passed, and 

 when Mr. Nickey retired from business two years ago on account of his 

 health he left his sons in charge of very handsome properties. 



Mr. Nickey was noted for his public spirit and for his active support 

 to the church and of charities of various kinds. He was a strong advocate 

 of organization among lumber interests, and was prominently identified 

 with the various hardwood lumber organizations both national and local. 

 .\lthough rendered almost deaf by a severe illness when forty-five years 

 of age, he did not let this handicap interfere with his aggressive business 

 policy. He overcame that just as he conquered other problems he had to 

 meet, and during the later part of his life enjoyed the fruits of the 

 strenuous period of active labor which marked the passage from young 

 manhood to his three score yi-ars and ten. 



Commissioners Talk on Conditions 

 John R. Walker of Washington and Nelson C. Brown, two of the four 

 commissioners appointed by the United States Government to visit Euro- 

 pean countries and study lumber trade conditions, especially with a view 

 to filling the needs arising after the war in the way of reconsti-uction and 

 otherwise, came to Baltimore Jul.v 26 and had a long conference with 

 Harvey M. Dickson, secretary of the National Lumber Exporters' Associa- 

 tion. They went with him over the territory to be covered by them and 

 got valuable information in regard to the practices and usages in the 

 export trade, Mr. Dickson having l)een for years engaged therein. The 

 peculiar customs in the various countries and the rules to be observed were 

 considered, and Mr. Dickson pointed out many of the problems which they 

 would be called upon to face in their travels. The visitors were impressed 

 with the extent of Mr. Dickson's information and paid him the compliment 

 of saying they have received more hints of value here than at any other 

 point they had touched. John L. Alcock of John L. Alcock & Co. was to 

 have attended the conference, but owing to a change in the date of the 

 latter a i>revious engagement intervened. The two commissioners ex- 

 pressed their profound appreciation of the facts placed before them. Mr. 

 Walker was scheduled to leave about the end of this week for the other 

 side, going to England, France, Belgium, Holland and Switzeriantl, while 

 Jlr. Brown is expected to depart some time next week from a Pacific port, 

 traveling by w'ay of Japan to Russia, and taking in Greece and various 

 otjier countries. One of the problems to which both will give special 

 attention is the exportation of Japanese oak, w'hich is on the increase and 

 promises to become a formidable cojjipetitor of American oak. not less than 

 10,000.000 feet having been sent to the Pacific coast. 



The Japanese oak proposition is regarded as reall.v a very serious ont' 

 for the American exporters, who find this wood going into the markets 

 of Great Britain and other Allied countries in increasing volume. The 

 breaking out of the war caught several cargoes in English ports, and they 

 were of course absorbed, ^ince then shipments have been made from time 

 to time, and these shipments are stated to be on the increase. The receipt 

 of 10,000,000 feet on the Pacific coast, as stated above, indicates that the 

 home markets are in grave danger of invasion by Japanese oak. Australian 



oak likewise has begun to cut something of a figure in the European trade 

 and promises to divide the markets with American oak, having in Great 

 Britain the advantage that Australia is a British colony and therefore likely 

 to be favored. 



The commissioners have been requested to give this problem careful 

 attention and to go into all of its bearings, with a view to offer such sug- 

 gestions as may enable the .\merican exporters to meet the situation suc- 

 cessfully. 



Purchase Kentucky Timber 



The Hutchinson Lumber Company of Huntington, W. Va., has purchased 

 a tract of three thousand acres of timber in Floyd county, Kentucky, 

 property having been owned by James Hatcher. It is understood that the 

 Hutchinson company plans to build a band mill in Floyd county and to 

 cut the Hatcher timber and other holdings which it owns in that vicinity. 

 It is stated that the hand mill will be erected at once. 



C. Stowell Smith Resigns 



C. Stowell Smith, who for several years had been chief of the Forest 

 Service branch at San Francisco. Cal., has resigned to accept the positi<m 

 of secretary of the California White and Sugar Pine Association, with 

 headquarters at San Francisco. Mr. Smith was known as one of the Forest 

 Service's hardest workers, and he has a wide acquaintance among lumber- 

 men of the United States, through his connection with lumber investiga- 

 tions. He is succeeded in the Government office at San Francisco by Carl 

 A. Kupfer, who has been in the Forest Service a long time and will main- 

 tain the high standard of the California office. 



Visit Lenox Sawmill Plant 



The accompanying photograph shows W. B. Harbison of Defuniac, Fla. : 

 J. T. Hughes of the Florala Sawmill Company, Paxton. Fla., and W. S. 

 Whiting, president, Lenox Sawmill Company, who makes his quarters at 



Elizabethton, Tenn. These gentlemen recently inspected the fine new- 

 plant of the Lenox Sawmill Company at Lenox, Ky. They desired to 

 inspect the new mill, which is electrically driven, and also spent consider- 

 able time on the splendid timber on which the mill operates. Incidentally, 

 one of the white oak trees in this tract contains 7,800 feet, log scale. The 

 poplar tree in front of which the gentlemen are standing would scale 

 about 4.160 feet as a conservative estimate. 



W. S. Whiting, in addition to being president of the Lenox Sawmill 

 Company, is owner of the big hardwood planing mill at Elizabethton and 

 is president of the Boon Fork Lumber Company at Shulls, N. C. He is 

 well known in hardwood manufacturing circles. Mr. Whiting is always 

 interested in the application of scientific manufacturing and utilization 

 methods. He has installed special machinery at his Elizabethton plant for 

 pulverizing saw dust, shipments of which now average about $8,000 a 

 month. 



W. D. Jcdinston, vice-president of the Lenox Sawmill Company, and 

 president of the American Lumber & Manufacturing Company of Pitts- 

 burgh, who sent us the photographs, states that the Lenox mill is operat- 

 ing very smoothly and that the stock now in the yard is approximately two 

 million feet. 



Furniture Plant Resumes Operation 



Word conies from Keyser, W. Va., that the plant of the Richardson 

 Furniture Company will soon resume operations. It has been leased by 

 R. G. Richardson of Keyser and certain Philadelphia capitalists. The 

 new firm will be known as The Keyser Wood Working Company. 

 Machinery and plant will be overhauled and soon be in operation. 



Change in Machinery Company 



The Ilill-Curtis Company of Kalamazoo, Mich., announces to the trade 

 that it has succeeded to the sawmill machinery business for many years 

 conducted by the Wm. E. Hill Company, Kalamazoo, Mich., and the Curtis 



