Outstanding leader in Lumbering and Milling Businesses

Submitted by John Appleyard

One account of Northwest's Florida's late19th century industrial development stated that by 1890 there were sixty-five lumber mills operating in Escambia and adjacent counties. Most of the operators were first generation to Florida, but a few were not. One whose family had entered this field regionally in antebellum days was William Swift Keyser, banker, manufacturer, philanthropist.

The Keyser family emigrated to the United States from Holland in 1688, at the time of the Glorious Revolution which brought Holland's king to England. The Keysers' were residents of the Germantown area of Pennsylvania from that date until 1818, when William S. Keyser's grandfather moved to Pensacola. Why the move? We do not know. The Keyser of that period had married a New England lady, and his son had been born in Connecticut in 1821 (again the disparity in dates and locations is not historically explained). In any event, young William Judah Keyser was raised on the Gulf Coast and established the firm of Keyser, Judah & Company, lumberers, in 1857. The plant was destroyed by retreating Southern forces in 1862 but was rebuilt soon after the war. Meanwhile, young William Swift Keyser had been born either early in or just before the war's beginning. He was a freshman at Yale University when his father died; that death was followed two years later (in 1879) by the passing of the firm's other partner, Judah, a lumberman and ship builder. Within a year W. S. Keyser had been graduated at New Haven and returned home to become the firm's manager.

Young Keyser had planned to follow the law, but the excitement of the lumbering industry of the 1880s was great, and so he remained at the firm's helm. The company name was changed to Keyser & Company, and within fifteen years the enterprise was much enlarged. By then Keyser & Company owned two large mills outright and had operating interests in twenty others, with foreign exports of over 150,000,000 feet of timber annually. As this growth occurred a young clerk named James M. Muldon joined the firm, demonstrated managerial skills, and contributed significantly to corporate growth and success. In 1904 the firm was renamed Keyser-Muldon & Company, with Muldon as a partner.

In 1888 Keyser married the former Mary Eliza Campbell, daughter of a local judge. They had seven children, four of whom survived infancy. The family belonged to Christ Church, where Keyser was a longtime vestryman.

Keyser was a Democrat and a strong party supporter, but he never sought office himself. He was not a prolific joiner. Those organizations in which he did retain memberships included New York's Yale and University clubs, and he was a member of the local Osceola and Country clubs. Keyser also was active in the Sons of the American Revolution, as a lineal descendent of Samuel Peace of Connecticut.

Keyser-Muldon followed the trend of other local mills; it was hard hit by the beginning of World War I, and by the recession of the early 1920s. When Keyser died, Muldon turned his interests to other forms of business, and the firm was closed.

William Swift Keyser is buried in 2 North Section 17.