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He wrote to his brother Levi Wyman Weston on 7 January 1847 'They live too well in this country for me. They kill everything with pepper and salt and spices and mix it so that you could not tell what the original is. We breakfast at 7, dine at 2. A great many dine at 3. Sup at 6. So you see that we have 7 hours between breakfast and dinner and that we eat too much dinner every day."
While working for Judge Wingate in 1849, cholera got so bad in New Orleans and up Pearl River that Henry left and went back to Wisconsin with no intention of ever returning. Fora time as many as 250 people a day died in New Orleans. In Wisconsin his health soon became so bad he had to return Mississippi the following year. Judge Wingate fired his replacement and gave Henry back his old job. It appears that the Judge paid Henry a commission for every thousand board feet of lumber the mill cut. Henry wrote his brother that he was making $3 per day, getting board with the engineer for $8 a month and saving about $65 per month. The mill employed 14 workers with a payroll of $210 per month. Old records show that Wingate was getting about $10 per thousand feet for the lumber.
In 1854 Judge Wingate sold his mill at Logtown along with the Chalons Claim comprising practically all the land at Logtown to John Russ, W.W. Carrie, and Henry Carrie. Henry continued to operate the mill for the W.W. Carre Company.
In 1856 John Russ conveyed his interest in the mill to Henry Weston. This was his first ownership in a sawmill. Two years later he married Lois Angela Mead the daughter of Stephen Mead of Bedford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts and Adeline Russ of Brunswick County, North Carolina on 15 Jul 1858 in Gainsville, Hancock County, Mississippi.He purchased the Wingate home where all his nine children were born
By the time of the war Henry Weston and partners had paid in full for the mill and the big tract of land where Logtown stood. In addition to the mill and lands they owned $20,000 worth of slaves. Each partner was drawing $5000 per year salary, a huge amount for that time. Lumber business profits prior to the Civil War were large compared with investment and labor costs. Henry Weston bragged that he "made money like smoke.?
The W.W. Carrie Company continued to grow and maintained successful operations until the Union Army captured New Orleans in 1862. Their markets blockaded, the mill closed and the equipment buried in the forests of southern Mississippi for the remainder of the Civil War.
Henry Weston stayed in Logtown operating his farm and doing other things. Records of the Police Jury for April 1863 show that Henry was appointed Captain of the Patrol from Logtown and Pearlington eastward for several miles. The Patrol was formed to protect citizens from irregulars and jayhawkers. These years were filled with uncertainty and unrest as deserters and "Jay Hawkers" were raiding theses sparsely populated areas. They would rob and kill widows and women, whose husbands were at war, of their cattle, horses and everything of value. Federal troop worked with and encouraged these bands.
A particular incident is quoted from Henry Weston's grandson, John Roland Weston's history.
"In the latter part of 1864 law enforcement had broken down in many areas of the South and particularly in the rural sections. Bands know as Jay Hawkers, roamed over the many areas of the South, robbing and murdering Confederates and Yankees alike. A band came close to Logtown and encamped on a branch of the Pearl River. They intended to kill Henry Weston, Henry Carrie and several other prominent citizens. Then they would rob their widows of the cattle, horses and anything else of value."
"My grandfather and the others heard of this and formed a posse and attacked the bandit's camp. They killed several and several escaped. One, by the name of Pape, was captured and hung almost immediately at the camp site. This location is about 2 miles east of Pearlington, Mississippi, close to U.S. Highway 90 and from that day to this the branch has been known as Pape's Branch."
The mill resumed operations following the end of the Civil War and soon began to prosper again. There was a big demand for timber of all kinds. By 1870 the lumber business was booming. Everyone was giving up subsistence farming to work in the logging business. In 1874 Henry bought out the Carrie brothers share of the mill. Records do not show what he paid, but it is said that he paid them the biggest price that any sawmill had ever sold for in that area. In 1877 the industry was devastated for two years when the federal government seized the lumber at the mills on the Gulf Coast claiming that it was illegally taken from federal lands, including strategic naval reserve forestlands. The Poitevent and Favre and the H. Weston Lumber Companies closed