Forest Life and Forest Trees: comprising winter camp-life among the loggers, and wild-wood adventure.: with Descriptions of lumbering operations on the various; rivers of Maine and New BrunswickSpringer, John S.
History
Forest Life and Forest Trees: comprising winter camp-life among the loggers, and wild-wood adventure.: with Descriptions of lumbering operations on the various; rivers of Maine and New Brunswick
Springer, John S.
Lumbering -- Maine; Maine -- Description and travel; New Brunswick -- Description and travel; Trees
The true Indian orthography is said to be Na-la-gua-gwees, and
signifies palate, stream, or river. To use the precise language of my
Indian interpreter, opening his mouth wide and thrusting his finger
down his throat, "It means all one, jes if I open my mouth and river
run down my throat into mine belly." Whether there is any peculiarity
about the river, or the form of the bay into which it falls, to
originate such a name, I am unaware.
This stream, for water power, is about equal in its capacity to
either of the Machias rivers. The mills are principally located at
Cherryfield, where are fifteen saw and eight lath mills, three
shingle and one clap-board machine. The saw-mills are said to produce
about nine millions of long lumber per annum, worth eight dollars per
_M._ on an average. The lath mills produce six million four hundred
thousand pieces, worth one dollar per _M._ Nine hundred thousand
shingles are annually turned out, at two dollars and fifty cents per
_M._ The clap-board machine may be credited with one hundred thousand
pieces during the sawing season; of their quality I am not informed.
In general they range from fifteen to thirty dollars per _M._
Computing the value of the foregoing products, we have presented the
annual product:
Long Lumber $72,000
Laths 6,400
Shingles 2,250
Clap-boards 2,000
------
Total $82,650
Sixty teams are said to be employed on this river during the hauling
season, and about three hundred men. The resources for lumber were
reported by the most intelligent operators as equal to those of any
lumber district in the state of equal size.
In the adjoining town of Franklin five saw-mills were reported,
situated on small streams, doing a large business. These mills are
said to manufacture about three million feet, worth eight dollars per
_M._, giving twenty-four thousand dollars.
About half way between the Narraguagues and the Penobscot Rivers, and
upon an almost exact parallel with the latter, runs Union River, which
disembogues into an arm of Frenchman's Bay. On the banks of this
river, near its mouth, stands the village of Ellsworth, which is
decidedly one of the most beautiful places in Maine, and in the
immediate vicinity of which the mills are principally located; in all,
about twenty-five.
The annual amount of long lumber manufactured here is about sixteen
million feet, worth some hundred and twelve thousand dollars; the
aggregate amount of the various kinds of short lumber annually
produced is worth some sixteen thousand dollars more.
From four to five hundred men, and about the same number of oxen and
horses, are employed in the lumbering business. Logs are driven from
two to forty miles. The territory through which this stream flows is
well timbered, and affords an abundant supply of logs.
CHAPTER IV.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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