THE BEGINNINGS OF LUMBERING AS AN INDUSTRY 

 IN THE NEW WORLD, AND FIRST EFFORTS AT 

 FOREST PROTECTION. A HISTORICAL STUDY. 



The business of lumbering, which at the present time has the 

 fourth place among the great industries of this country, had its 

 beginning in the old town of Berwick, Maine, for in that town 

 was erected in 163 1 the first saw-mill in the New World, of which 

 the date is certain, also the second saw-mill in 1634, and at the 

 same time the first corn-mill to be run by water-power. And here 

 also, in 1650, was built the first gang saw-mill on this continent, 

 if not in the world. 



The first document printed in vol. 4 of the Documentary His- 

 tory of New York, is a fragmentary Journal of New Netherland, 

 by an unknown writer, written between the years 1641 and 1647. 

 In this Journal the writer mentions three saw-mills erected, which 

 were erected by the West India Company, but he does not give 

 the date of their erection, or their location. He says : "In the 

 beginning their Honors had sent a certain number of settlers 

 thither and at great expense had three saw mills erected, which 

 never realized any Profit of consequence." 



Prior to the erection of the first saw-mill, or about 1629, the 

 first settlers at Saco and Newichwannock, now South Berwick, 

 Maine, began to manufacture the tall pines and the large oaks of 

 the forest into lumber by hand, riving the former into cloave- 

 boards ( clapboards ) and the latter into pipe-staves, which lum- 

 ber formed a part of the return cargoes of the ships that came to 

 the Piscataqua in those early da3's of its settlement. All clap- 

 boards, pipe-staves and shingles were made in this way until 

 machines were invented for sawing them, during the first half of 

 the last century. 



The first mention of a saw-mill in New England historj- we 

 find in the letter from Thomas Eyre, one of the adventurers or 

 company of Laconia, to Mr. Ambrose Gibbins, their factor at 

 Newichwannock. This letter was written in London, the last of 

 May, 1631. 



" Mr Gibbins : — Yours of the 8th April, 1630, from Pl5miouth 

 I received — Your next to me is dated the 21st July last at Pas- 

 cataquacke — Your third letter is dated the 14 of August by which 



