David Robert Wingate was born on February 20, 1819, in Darlington County, South Carolina, to Robert P. Wingate and Pherobee Kelly. The family moved to Hancock County, Mississippi, and he attended school there. He married Caroline Morgan on September 19, 1839, and they had seven children, including: Mary, born around 1840; John, born around 1842; Elizabeth, born around 1844; Robert, born around 1846; and Walter, born around 1848. He began operating a sawmill in the late 1840s.

 

The family moved to Newton County, Texas, around 1852, and he purchased a plantation there. He enslaved at least 73 people. According to one scholar, Wingate was “the largest antebellum cotton planter in Southeast Texas.” He also owned sawmill facilities at Sabine Pass, Texas, which he turned into the “largest steam sawmill in the state.” By 1860, he owned $108,000 of real estate.

 

Wingate sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. He served in the Sabine Pass Guard, and he received a commission as colonel of the Second Texas Militia Infantry. He became chief justice of Newton County in 1864.

 

Wingate remained in Newton County after the war. By 1870, he owned $25,000 of real estate and $12,000 of personal property. He moved to Orange County, Texas, in the 1870s and helped transform the area into “one of the most important sawmill centers in Texas.” He served as county judge from 1879 until 1884. He died of pneumonia in Orange, Texas, on February 15, 1899.

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