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1814: Logs in swollen Maine rivers cause destruction
Brought to you by Remarkably Remote, a microcast from GoToMeeting. Working from home for the very first time and wondering how to cope? We’ve got you covered! Remarkably Remote will help you bring organization to your work — and sanity to your day! Head to gotomeeting.com/tips or listen on your favorite podcasting platform.
May 17, 1814: The state of Maine is known for many things, including of the longest running industries in North America, dating back until the early 1600s is logging. The British Royal Navy quickly claimed the best stands of light and strong Eastern White Pine for the masts, spars, and planking for their fast and maneuverable ships. England's competitors, the French, the Dutch, and the Spanish, were left to build from the heavier Baltic Fir. It was Revolutionary War debt which boosted the first harvests. To raise money, Massachusetts sold land to the District of Maine Logging operations grew in proportion to the national demand for lumber products, which grew in proportion to the expansion of the nation itself over the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The industry became extensive and complex entailing surveyors to identify likely stands of trees, lumbermen to cut timber, teamsters and their draft animals to haul logs, scalers to measure the timber's worth, and river drivers to float logs to the mills. Most trees were felled in the late fall and winter and then floated downstream on Maines rivers to ports at the coast. These golden rivers as they were called because of their color appearance because of the logs and the money the wood would represent on delivery were covered from bank to bank with floating timber. Most of the time they were controlled by crews working the river. But as they floated downstream in the spring they would sometimes get loose and out of control. The result could be and often times was disaster as the timber acted like a battering ram destroying anything in its path. On May 17, 1814 after a soggy April and early May the rivers were all swollen and the logs did their work wiping out anything in their path, destroying bridges and docks and any structures near the shore. It would take years to recover.
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Brought to you by Remarkably Remote, a microcast from GoToMeeting. Working from home for the very first time and wondering how to cope? We’ve got you covered! Remarkably Remote will help you bring organization to your work — and sanity to your day! Head to gotomeeting.com/tips or listen on your favorite podcasting platform.
May 17, 1814: The state of Maine is known for many things, including of the longest running industries in North America, dating back until the early 1600s is logging. The British Royal Navy quickly claimed the best stands of light and strong Eastern White Pine for the masts, spars, and planking for their fast and maneuverable ships. England's competitors, the French, the Dutch, and the Spanish, were left to build from the heavier Baltic Fir. It was Revolutionary War debt which boosted the first harvests. To raise money, Massachusetts sold land to the District of Maine Logging operations grew in proportion to the national demand for lumber products, which grew in proportion to the expansion of the nation itself over the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. The industry became extensive and complex entailing surveyors to identify likely stands of trees, lumbermen to cut timber, teamsters and their draft animals to haul logs, scalers to measure the timber's worth, and river drivers to float logs to the mills. Most trees were felled in the late fall and winter and then floated downstream on Maines rivers to ports at the coast. These golden rivers as they were called because of their color appearance because of the logs and the money the wood would represent on delivery were covered from bank to bank with floating timber. Most of the time they were controlled by crews working the river. But as they floated downstream in the spring they would sometimes get loose and out of control. The result could be and often times was disaster as the timber acted like a battering ram destroying anything in its path. On May 17, 1814 after a soggy April and early May the rivers were all swollen and the logs did their work wiping out anything in their path, destroying bridges and docks and any structures near the shore. It would take years to recover.
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