Background
He was the son of Jonas M. Kilmer and Julia E. Sharpe, was a marketing pioneer, newspaperman, and horse breeder.
He was the son of Jonas M. Kilmer and Julia E. Sharpe, was a marketing pioneer, newspaperman, and horse breeder.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from Cornell University in 1890.
Kilmer was perhaps best known for advertising and promoting his uncle"s Swamp Root patent medicine formula until it became a household name. Doctor South. Andral Kilmer (1840–1924) developed the Swamp Root formula and began selling it around 1878. Three years later, Doctor Kilmer"s brother Jonas (1843–1912) arrived from New York City to help run the fast-growing business.
Continued success led them to construct the six-story Kilmer Building at Lewis and Chenango Sts in downtown Binghamton, New York as their manufacturing and business headquarters in 1903.
The Swamp Root formulation fell out of favor after the advent of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Acting, which resulted in the federal government imposing testing and labeling requirements on a variety of products, including patent medicines with dubious claims. The decline in the patent medicine business led Kilmer to branch out into other businesses.
He was extensively involved in real estate, owning a landmark family mansion in Binghamton, New York, constructing the twelve story Press Building in downtown Binghamton as a home for another new business he created, The Binghamton Press Company, building several other less-prominent buildings in downtown Binghamton, and three racing stables and estates: Sun Briar Court in Binghamton, Court Manor in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and Remlik, on the banks of Virginia"s Rappahannock River. Kilmer"s private yacht Remlik (the name being Kilmer spelled backwards) was purchased by the United States Navy during World War I and converted into the United States Ship Remlik (SP-157) armed patrol vessel.
Kilmer died in 1940 from pneumonia having amassed a fortune of some $15 million, mostly from the sale of the patent medicine Swamp Root tonic, which is still for sale today.
After his death, Kilmer was interred at a mausoleum in Floral Park Cemetery in the Binghamton suburb of Johnson City, New New York
Both Exterminator and Sun Beau were elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.