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retiring in^1^43. Mr. Oti^/^egan a towing business, owning the tug boats BETTYE and J. S. OTIS. Later he was elected Circuit Clerk of
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Hancock County and held that office for 13 years until his death in 1972.
THE SEA COAST ECHO, dated October 31,	1914, gave front page
coverage to the burning of Weston Mill Number One. Also completely destroyed by the fire at a^earby dock were the steamboat PELICAN and the tugboat PALO PINTO. In a short time a large modern saw mill
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replaced the one destroyed by fire.
The mills were in operation for almost one hundred years. The H. Weston Lumber Company was numbered among the largest lumber exporting firms in the South. The company owned and operated two large, modern sawmills, employing 1,200 men at the peak of production. They owned about twenty barges, schooners, steamboats, and tugs, in addition to fifty miles or more of standard railroad equipped with modern logging machinery, and an immense acreage of fine timberland - everything necessary for a large, modern lumber manufacturing business.
Mr. Horatio S. Weston, son of Henry Weston, was instrumental in making The H. Weston Lumber Company the first in Mississippi to begin the practice of forestry. The company participated in organized forestry work and forest fire prevention. Mr. Weston was largely responsible for the laws passed by the 1927-28 legislature whereby a State Forestry Commission and the State Forestry Service