HARDWOOD RECORD 



IS 



'Builders of Lumber Histort;. 



NUMBER IV. 



James B. Wall. 



Of the distinguished coterie of Buffalo 

 business men who are devoted to the hard- 

 wood lumber industry, James B. Wall, whose 

 portrait the H-ujdwood' Record is privileged 

 to publish as its supplement in this issue, is 

 an important factor. 



Tall and erect, the personification of kind- 

 ly good nature both to his acquaintances and 

 employes, steadfast in his friendship, ex- 

 ceedingly charitable in thought, speech and 

 act, markedly just in commercial transactions 

 James B. Wall is a man with whom it is a 

 pleasure to do business and an honor to num- 

 ber among one's friends. 



Mr. Wall was born at Avon, N. Y., Oct. 16, 

 1857, consequently he is still on the sunny 

 side of fifty. Like most of the lumber fra- 

 ternity, his first years were spent on the home 

 farm where he was born. When he was twen- 

 ty-one he began his search for the business 

 which should be his life work, but it was not 

 until 1885 that he invaded the lumber busi- 

 ness, which he found so congenial that he en- 

 tered the firm of Stanton, Crandle & Co. at 

 Painted Post, N. Y., in the year 1888. 



He soon realized that the principal whole- 

 sale market of the eastern part of the United 

 States was at Buffalo, N. Y., and in partner- 

 ship with his brother, Maurice M. Wall, he 

 purchased the interests of the Buffalo Hard- 

 wood Company. This institution was run as 

 a co-partnership until the spring of 1898, 

 when it was reorganized into a stock com- 

 pany with James B. Wall as president, the 

 office which he still fills today in the concern. 



Mr. Wall is treasurer and a heavy stock- 

 holder in the Eureka Hardwood Lumber Com- 

 pany, with sawmills, timber lands and rail- 

 roads at Becton, Ark., and he is also treas- 

 urer and general manager of the Buffalo Desk 

 & Table Company of Buffalo. 



A broad gauge business man, James B. 

 Wall has always taken an interest in every- 

 thing which will help the hardwood trade in 

 any way. He is one of the active members 

 of the Buffalo Lumber Exchange, of which he 

 was president for two years. He was vice- 

 gerent of Hoo-Hoo in 1899 for western New 

 York, under the administration of Nelson A. 

 Gladding, and the following year he was made 

 a member of the supreme nine of the order. 



Mr. Wall married Miss Anna Pitz-Martin 

 of Painted Post, N. Y., in 1887, and a family 

 of four boys and one girl makes joyful his 

 beautiful home in Buffalo. 



Mr. Wall is one of the ablest hardwood 

 lumbermen in the country, and, standing, as 

 he does, practically at the head of three im- 

 portant commercial propositions, his opinion 

 on hardwood actinties ig of great value. 

 When one considers what mental powers are 

 required in the conduct of a successful busi- 

 r,ess today, that sound judgment, precise 

 adaptation of means to ends, great energy, 

 promptness of decision, and above all tact 

 in the management of men are demanded, one 

 may conclude that all the genius in the world 

 is not lodged in the brains of the painters, 

 poets and musicians. Sometimes one finds it 

 in the hardheaded business man, who has 

 learned thoroughly the definition of Carlyle, 

 that genius only means taking infinite pains. 



Hardwood Flooring. 



The hardwood flooring industry of the Uni- 

 ted States during the last few years has at- 

 tained large importance, and has become a 

 no inconsiderable adjunct to the general hard- 

 wood industry. As marked by figures of out- 

 put, the most important hardwood flooring of 

 the country is that produced from hard 

 maple. Next in volume is the flooring pro- 

 duced from various varieties of oak. Third, 

 is the flooring produced from birch and 

 beech. The production of flooring in this 

 country during the last few years, by dint 

 of hard-earned experience, the investment of 

 much money in superb plants, and the ex- 

 hibition of much patience and industry, has 

 reached a point of perfection that is scarcely 

 excelled by any product made from wood. 



A suitable flooring of houses has been a 

 matter of evolution. Since the time of the 

 pounded clay floor and the puncheons of split 

 saplings, there has been a gradual improve- 

 ment in flooring materials. For years rough 

 boards laid upon flooring joists were regarded 

 as an excellent floor. Then these boards were 



dressed by hand, the material utilized being 

 almost universally pine, spruce and hemlock. 

 With the advent of the rotary cutting head 

 of the Woodbury machine, the flooring boards 

 were machine dressed; and eventually they 

 were jointed by hand. The flooring expert 

 of sixty years ago "shot" his flooring strips, 

 and laid his flooring loosely on the joist, and 

 as the wood became thoroughly seasoned 

 eventually wedged the strips closer together, 

 and spiked them through and through with 

 good old-fashioned hand-made wrought iron 

 nails. 



The next great improvement in flooring, at 

 which time the acme of perfection supposedly 

 was reached, was when the house carpenter of 

 a little more than a half century ago labor- 

 iously tongued and grooved the flooring 

 strips with the hand tool of that day. Then 

 the four-sided planing machine was invented, 

 and the carpenters of the good old Quaker 

 City went out on a riot with the claim that 

 the advent of tonguing and grooving by 

 machinery surely presaged ruin to their call- 



ing. They even went to the extreme of wreck- 

 ing the machines that had been installed. 

 All this is flooring history. 



Perhaps to the inspiration supplied by the 

 necessity of hardwood floors, caused by the 

 invention of the roller skate, which occurred 

 some thirty years ago, may be ascribed the 

 advent and the desirability of floors made of 

 some material far more substantial than soft 

 woods afforded. The wear of the trucks of 

 the roller skate soon make a wreck of floors 

 constructed of pine or spruce, and in search- 

 ing for a wood that should be cheap, and 

 still have good wearing qualities, some wise 

 man discovered that the material hitherto 

 used as firewood by many generations of his 

 ancestors afforded the proper material. For 

 several years roller skating was a craze, and 

 hundreds and perhaps thousands of roller 

 skating rinks throughout the United States 

 were floored with maple. Previous to this 

 time the only hardwood flooring ever known 

 was either oak or ash, and ash proved itself 

 to" be but a poor flooring material especially 

 when flat sawed. Flooring made of oak was 

 only for the parlors of the rich. The roller 

 skating rink craze died out, and with it was 

 extinguished for fully a dozen years any de- 

 mand for maple flooring. 



After the practical extinction of the white 

 pine growth of the northern portion of the 

 lower peninsula of Michigan local lumber- 

 men in the attempt to perpetuate their in- 

 dustry set about exploiting the mixed hard- 

 wood growth of that section of the country. 

 Gray elm was in good demand, as well as 

 black ash, rock elm and birch, but the forest 

 was found to contain a proportion of well 

 toward forty per cent of maple. Hardwood 

 production in Michigan alone of the woods 

 for which there was a demand was imprac- 

 tical from a financial standpoint, and efforts 

 were made to preate a market for the wood 

 that had formerly only been converted into 

 charcoal or firewood. It was found that 

 maple possessed, notably when green, a won- 

 derful resistance to fracture or crushing, and 

 while largely a sap-wood was of an age and 

 physical character that made it a very de- 

 sirable material where strength and durability 

 were concerned. 



As the manufacture of Michigan hard- 

 wood progressed, the price at which maple 

 was offered in the markets tempted many 

 manufacturers of various lines of '. wood 

 products to experiment with its use. Agri- 

 cultural implement people took hold of it. 

 The furniture manufacturers commenced to 

 use it. It was found a worthy material for 

 machinery frames, and sundry other uses. 

 All these uses, however, required thick stock, 

 and there was an accumulation of inch lum- 

 ber Tihich became a veritable drug on the 

 market. 



Then it was that there was a renaissance 

 of experiments in the making of accurately 

 manufactured flooring for warehouse, store, 

 office, public and house buildings took place. 

 The milling qualities of the wood proved very 

 difficult, and it was only after the woodwork- 



