STREAMS DECLARED NAVIGABLE. 23 



STREAMS DECLARED NAVIGABLE. 



At first the people living along- the river objected strenuously to the 

 use of the streams for floating logs to the mills. The first law declar- 

 ing any river in this State a "'public highway" was passed in 1806. 

 This act provided that the Salmon River, in Franklin County, could 

 be used for rafts and boats below Malone, and it enacted further that 

 if any person shall "cut or fell any trees into the said river such 

 person shall forfeit one dollar for each tree so felled and suffered to 

 remain in the said river twenty-four hours.' 1 This same law, chapter 

 139, forbade any person from "rolling an} r log or logs into the 

 Schroon River in Essex County, or doing anything to obstruct said 

 river," under a penalty of $5 for each offense; but provided that nothing 

 in the act should " prevent any person from rafting any lumber down 

 said river they may think proper." The restrictions in this law as to 

 obstructions will be read with interest by those who, in recent years, 

 have noticed how many of our Adirondack rivers are tilled at times 

 for a long distance with a solid mass of floating logs through which no 

 boat can pass. 



But industrial interests are always recognized in time, and so, in 

 1854, the legislature declared the Salmon River kw a public highway 

 for the purpose of floating saw-logs and timber." In fact, a portion 

 of the river was so used before the passage of this law. 



In 1801 the legislature passed a'law (chapter 103) to punish anyone 

 who stole timber or lumber that was floating down the river or lying 

 along the shore. This act refers to "any timber, hewed, sawed, or 

 riven," terms which do not seem to include saw-logs, and which would 

 indicate that only long timber, spars, and masts were floated down the 

 stream at that time. Section 2 of this law provides a severe penalty 

 for persons who shall "deface or alter any mark, or put a false mark 

 on any such timber,' 1 from which it appears that "log-marks" were 

 in use then, even if short logs were not driven down the stream. 

 Nine years later a law w T as passed (chapter 34, Laws of 1813) requiring 

 all log-marks to be recorded in the office of the town clerk of Queens- 

 bury, and the phraseology of this act shows that log-driving had com- 

 menced <>n the Hudson and "its branches to the northwest of Baker's 

 Falls." In 1825 a similar act was passed for the protection of log- 

 marks on the Au Sable River. 



In 1810 the State legislature declared the Raquette River a public 

 highway from its month to the bottom of the falls in the township of 

 Louisville (St. Lawrence County) for rafts and boats. Chapter 264 

 of the Laws of 1850 declared the Raquette River a public highway for 

 the purpose of floating logs and lumber from its month in the town of 

 Massena to the foot of Raquette Lake, in the county of Hamilton. 



The Black River was first declared a highway in L821, the law pro- 



