The huge log drive of some forty million feet this article describes was assembled in the spring of 1909, near North Stratford, New Hampshire. It capped a decade of intense lumbering all along the upper Connecticut River, at an unsustainable rate of exploitation. By 1920, the lumber harvest outside Maine was dramatically smaller and would soon disappear. Lumbering in the U.S. had been relatively small-scale before the Civil War, but a number of technological advances increased the ability to harvest and saw wood. The double-bitted axe from around 1850, the crosscut saw from 1870, and steam-powered saws beginning in the 1850s, increased a mill’s output from 1,000 board feet per day in 1800, to more than 50,000 board feet per day in 1880. Corporate changes also increased logging efficiency, particularly the consolidation of large lumber companies that began in the 1830s, and dominated the industry by the 1880s.
Greenfield Gazette and Courier. “Log Drive of 36,000,000 Feet.” May 29, 1909. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l02-090/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
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