“Palmer Job Pillans was a native of South Carolina, and a civil engineer by profession. He served as major in the army of the Texan Republic, and as a lieutenant-colonel in the Civil war.
He moved to New Mexico in 1849, Mobile in 1853, and resided in Dallas County, Alabama around 1872. For about twenty years after his settlement in Mobile and up to the reconstruction period, he served as city engineer of Mobile.

He was a member of Bienville Lodge No. 348 in 1882 and was appointed to serve on a Select Committee of Five to perfect some plan to carry out the ideas of resolutions offered to establish a Masonic Orphans Home and College at the 1882 Annual Communications.”