THE FIRST SAWMILLS. 13 



In 1636 Barent Pieterse Koeymans joined the colony, and in the fall 

 of 1645 took charge of the Patroon's sawmills, being allowed 150 

 guilders a year for board and 3 stuy vers for every plank he sawed. 

 In two years this mill cut over 4,000 boards. In 1673 Koeymans 

 bought a large tract of land on the Hudson River, 12 miles south of 

 Albany (the location of the present town of Coeymans), on which 

 there were some desirable mill-sites, and where Cruyn Cornelissen 

 and Hans Jansen had erected sawmills as early as 1651. 



The colonists soon made other settlements in the Hudson Valley, 

 and in 1661 Frans Pieters Clavers built a sawmill on the little stream 

 which runs into the river 2 miles north of Stuyvesant Landing, in 

 what is now the town of Kinderhook, Columbia County. This stream 

 has been known as the Saw Kill ever since. In 1663 a sawmill was 

 built by Jan Barentsen Wemp on the Poesten Kill, a stream which 

 empties into the Hudson at Troy. As the falls of the Poesten Kill (Puf- 

 fing or Foaming Creek) furnished a strong water-power, it may be 

 assumed that this mill was driven by a water-wheel. 



In a letter to the Lords of Trade, England, dated January 2, 1701, 

 the Earl of Bellomont says: a 



They have got about 40 sawmills up in this province [the province of New 

 York] which I hear rids more woods or destroys more timber than all the sawmills 

 in New Hampshire. Four saws are the most in New Hampshire that work in one 

 mill, and here is a Dutchman, lately come over, who is an extraordinary artist at 

 those mills. Mr. Livingston told me this last summer he had made him a mill that 

 went with 12 saws. A few such mills will quickly destroy all the woods in the 

 province at a reasonable distance from them. 



For the first two hundred } T ears the mills were of rude construction 

 and of small capacity, being limited to a single upright saw. At first 

 the saw was attached directly to the pitman, the blade being steadied 

 by a side pressure from guide blocks. (PI. II, fig. 1.) Then an 

 improvement was made by straining the saw between stirrups in a 

 frame or "gate," the pitman being attached to the latter. (PI. II, tig. 

 2.) As the turbine was then unknown, power was obtained from a 

 single overshot water-wheel. (PI. III.) 



Many of the first sawmills were built in combination with gristmills, 

 often under the same roof, the power being used to drive them both 

 or singly, as needed. 



For the next hundred years after the founding of the colonies at 

 New Amsterdam and Fort Orange (Albany) the settlementof the State 

 was confined to the region of the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. The 

 development of the country and growth of the lumber industry were 

 slow compared with the progress which succeeded the Revolution. 

 There being no means of transportation except in the river districts. 

 the lumbermen, after supplying local demands, had to depend on the 



'Colonial Documents, Vol. Ill, p. 825. 



