A perusal of the foregoing chapters, and especially the early ones, has exhibited to the reader the incipient struggles and mature development of a community of lumbermen, whose principle business has been to build and manage sawmills, and to conduct the manufacture of lumber. A short account of sawmills in general, and the progress of improvements in this branch of manufacturing industry, will not, therefore be inappropriate. To anyone who has witnessed a first-class modern sawmill operation, having all the latest inventions and improvements, and the wonderful facility, precision, and dispatch with which a rough log in converted into smooth, square-edged boards, the entire motive power of which is found in the restless energy of water, or by its conversion into steam through the application of heat, the statement may appear almost incredible when I say that three hundred years ago the sawmill, driven by either water or steam, was utterly unknown, and when we consider their great utility, and the prominent part they now perform in supply the want of men we are wont to ask, How did people live without sawmills? How did nations fit out vast fleets, and make all the lumber required, by hand? Where and how was all the lumber manufactured that Spain put into the Invincible Armada? Roman history speaks of almost every branch of industry, but it is silent as to the production of the lumber that composed the vast fleets of Scipios, of Pompey and Julius Caesar, of Mark Antony and Augustus. The sacred historians of an earlier day, however, have told us that eighty thousand men were employed to hew out the timbers and boards of Solomon's Temple, and for seven years they were employed. What a vast quantity of fir and cedar timber must have been wasted by those clumsy operatives, and how much time and labor could have been saved if some enterprising Yankee had been there to dam up one of the upper branches of the modern Nehrel Kasumyeh, put in a Leffel double-turbine waterwheel, or lay down a track and run up a forty-horse power steam engine to the foot of Mount Lebanon, and with a double rotary saw cut out all the boards and timbers in a week that several such houses required to ceil all the courts, and set up the posts and doors thereof. Some kid of saws were most likely used, even at this early day, as David laid the Ammonites under the saw and harrows of iron, and the Greek historians some five hundred years later speak of saws set in frames across which the logs of wood were moved back and forth until boards were made there from. Herod, too, rebuilt the Temple of God in less than half the time consumed by Solomon, and with less than a tenth the force, and in a style, finish, grandeur, and architecture beauty far surpassing Solomon's. But his supply of lumber was mainly from the same forest, Mount Lebanon. We must infer, therefore, that great improvements had been attained in the manufacture of all wood materials required in building at that time. Saw were the invention of a very early, perhaps prehistoric period, and their use became largely identified with the civilization of the race, and to us it seems surprising that an instrument so easily adapted to machinery, propelled by wind or water, should be so slow in finding its way to public favor. But like many other labor saving inventions, sawmills incurred the most furious opposition from the laboring classes in German, on the Rhine and Scheldt, where both wind and water were successfully employed to drive them, and in England, where a mob repeatedly destroyed everyone that capital and enterprise erected, for more than a hundred years after its adoption in the American colonies. The first sawmill erected in Massachusetts was in 1633, thirteen years after the landing of the May Flower. The same year a wind sawmill was erected in New Amsterdam, N.Y. This latter mill was leased one year, the rent of which was 500 feet of boards, half pine and half oak, so it could not have amounted to much. Judge Mitchell, of Iowa, once defined tyranny as 'too much law,' which if we accept as true, will certainly denominate the early laws of the colony of Massachusetts Bay as outrageously tyrannical, for it was enacted by the body of sages that "If any of the towns people shall bring any logs or timber to the mill to be sawed into boards or planks, the owners of the mill shall saw it before sawing any for themselves, and shall be entitled to one half of the lumber for their labor, and if any man shall wish to buy any lumber, the mill owner or owners shall sell him as much as he may desire, for the country pay, at 2s, 6p per 100 feet" (Massachusetts Historical Collection Volume 1). What would our mill men think of such laws now? The forests of the United States afforded not only a bountiful supply of building materials, but gave ample scope to inventive genius in improving machinery for, and the methods of, its manufacture. Before the application of steam power in propelling sawmills, water power mills were almost exclusively used in America to make sawed lumber, and two principle elements entered into their construction, namely, the 'wheel and saw.' The ancients seem to have been slow to apprehend the advantages of water as a motive power, and the invention of the best wheels, those that desire the greatest power from a given quantity of water, is of very recent date. Less than fifty years ago, somebody advanced the idea that water, as it escaped through some opening in a flume where it was pent up, pressed, or 'kicked,' against the sides of the opening with the same force that it fell on the surface below, and a treatise on Natural Philosophy, of that time, has a diagram representing the principle by a hollow shaft with arms at the foot, also hollow; the whole filled with water, and issuing from extreme ends on opposite sides through small apertures; the 'kick,' or reaction, of the water on freeing itself from the tube, sets the upright shaft in motion. The principle once established, it was not long before scientific and practical men applied it under several different names, as 'reaction' 'center-vent,' 'double-reaction,' wheel, etc., all combining under various modifications the principle, that by its reaction against the surface from whence it issues, water set those surfaces in motion, and, by long and patient experimenting, inventors have probably ascertained precisely what amount of surface, and the best form or mold of the surface, is required so that the greatest force may be exerted by the water in its passage through the vents, and several models have been patented, as the 'Stern's Wheel,' the 'Rose Wheel,' and the 'Leffel Double-Turbine Wheel.' The old fashioned wheels were of two kinds, overshot and undershot, but combining the same principle in the application of the water's propelling force. The former were generally used where a great head of water could be obtained and the supply limited; and the latter, where rapid motion must be attained at the expense of water in large volume. These last named wheels were almost exclusively in use in all the mills of the Chippewa until about the year 1850, when in one after another, as they were rebuilt or remodeled, the 'Stern,' Rose.' Or 'Turbine' wheels have taken their place. Many of my readers can remember when sawmills were all built after one pattern, a single upright saw set in a heavy sash or frame, the whole driven up and down by a flutter wheel twenty-five feet long, with a ponderous crank attached to a heavy pitman, at one end of which motion was given to the saw direct, and consequently the diameter of the wheel was so small as to secure rapid motion. One of the drawbacks in using these wheels was their utter worthlessness in case of backwater, as no amount of 'head' or fall would overcome the resistance offered by their immersion in dead water, while the reaction wheels work very well if there is sufficient head, though buried deep under water. Another objection to the old wheels was that only a large volume and good head of water were equal to driving a gang of saws, while a moderate head with a Stern' or Turbine wheel will easily drive a double gang. Well, good-bye to the flutter wheels. Ye did good service, and many a tired sawyer wishes for the return of the good old days when he took a good nap while ye were making a run! With the introduction of the new and more powerful wheels come the rotary saw, one of which for slabbing and fitting logs for a gang, will perform the work of half a dozen muleys, and with the aid of a Tarrant's log turner and other improvements for handling logs and lumber, edging, butting, and forwarding to the raft shed, a vast amount of lumber is manufactured in a single day at some of the largest establishments in this valley, and no more gratifying sight can be presented to visitors who come among us that to take them to one of our first class sawmills, where from fifty to a hundred thousand feet of boards, planks, joists, scantling and square timber are manufactured, sorted and rafted in ten hours. And so well accustomed are the men employed in the different parts of the work, and with such precision does each perform the part allotted to him, that he seems a part of the machinery upon which he attends. But for this accuracy and strict adherence of each and everyone to the duty assigned him, accidents would constantly occur.

to table of contents

Copyright Notice: All files on this site are copyrighted by their creator and/or contributor. They may be linked to but may not be reproduced on another site without specific permission from Tina Vickery [tsvickery@adelphia.net] and/or their contributor. Although public information is not in and of itself copyrightable, the format in which they are presented, the notes and comments, etc., are. It is however, quite permissable to print or save the files to a personal computer for personal use ONLY. My very special thanks to Holly Timm for the creation of the graphics used on this page.

last edited [an error occurred while processing this directive]