Born in Brooklyn, Willis Sharpe Kilmer (1869 – 1940) was a patent medicine manufacturer, newspaperman, and horse breeder, perhaps best known for advertising and promoting his uncle’s Swamp Root patent medicine formula until it became a household name.
In 1906 the company constructed the six-story Kilmer Building at Lewis and Chenango Streets in downtown Binghamton, NY, as their manufacturing and business headquarters.
The Swamp Root formula was regarded as fraud and quackery by critics. Medical experts noted that it was being advertised under false pretenses, the formula was potentially dangerous and there was no evidence it could cure kidney or liver disease.
It fell out of favor after the advent of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, 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, including real estate, and The Binghamton Press Company. He amassed a fortune of some $15 million, mostly from the sale of the patent medicine
He also owned 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 US Navy during World War I and converted into the USS Remlik (SP-157) armed patrol vessel.
Kilmer was the breeder of Reigh Count, the winner of the 1928 Kentucky Derby. He was the owner of Exterminator, the winner of the 1918 Kentucky Derby and 1922 American Horse of the Year, and the breeder and owner of Sun Briar, the largest money maker until Seabiscuit in 1939.
Both Exterminator and Sun Briar were elected to the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Two other well known stallions were Sun Briar- an ancestor of both Secretariat and Affirmed; and Suntica.
The Broome County Historical Society will host author and New York Almanack regular contributor Bill Orzell for a virtual presentation about Kilmer.
Orzell will explain the unique circumstances that influenced important decisions Kilmer made and how they impacted Broome County and reverberated across New York State.
The public program will be held online via Zoom and Facebook and in person in the Decker Community Room of the Broome County Public Library, 185 Court Street in Binghamton, NY.
The free event will take place on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, at 6:45 pm (with light refreshments for in-person attendees at 6:30).
A retired Geographic Field Analyst and sportsman who resides in DeRuyter, NY, Bill Orzell has had a lifelong appreciation for the economic, political, social and sporting history of New York State.
Orzell is the author of Willis Sharpe Kilmer: Thoroughbred Owner and Breeder (Troy Book Makers, 2024).
You can read his stories at the New York Almanack here.
Since 1919, the Broome County Historical Society has been collecting, preserving and interpreting the history of their area.
Photo: Willis Sharpe Kilmer in 1918.
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