1 8 Forestry Quarterly 



These regulations show that the manufacture of clapboards 

 and pipe-staves was a common business, and the reference to 

 plank and boards is evidence that saw-mills were in use here at 

 this time. 



Again: " At a meeting of the Selectmen holden the 25th of 

 loth mo. 1665. Ordered that whereas many persons doe fall 

 Timber and make staves without order and take in several in- 

 mates for that end, whereb}' the town and the settled inhabitants 

 are much injured, these are therefore to impower John Roberts, 

 Thomas Nock and Phillip Chesley or any two of them to make 

 dilligent sarch into all the woods, and when they find any that 

 hath transgressed town orders in making staves of felling tim- 

 ber, Avhat they find they shall sease for the use of the towne, the 

 informers shall have the one half for their Paynes and the other 

 tc be returned into the Towne Treasury." 



It will be observed that this third order was made twenty 

 three years after the first and yet there were timber trees suitable 

 for the manufacture of clapboards and pipe-staves to be protected 

 from wasteful cutting, which fact shows the wisdom of the orders. 



It appears that prisoners in the jails were sometimes em- 

 ployed in making shingles, as we learn from a letter from Wil- 

 liam Vaughan, Esq. containing a journal of transactions during 

 his imprisonment, etc., to Nathaniel Weare, Esq. Agent in Lon- 

 don, 17th March, 1683:* "The governor (Cranfield) having 

 formerly prohibited the prisoners from making shingles, went 

 himself this daj' to the prison and prohibited John Partridge 

 from making shoes : bade the marshal throw them into the sea." 



We find the following interesting bit of history in "Old 

 Eliot," vol. 4, p. 182, copied from Egertou MSS. 2395, British 

 Museum, if. 397-411. Extract by Dr. C. E. Banks. 



" Nichequiwanick. About three miles from Agomentine 

 (Agamenticus?) is the River Pascataway, which is six miles 

 from the mouth. It brancheth itself in two branches, the South 

 branch of which retaineth the name of Pascataway, the other 

 Nichiquiwanick. . . At the falls of Nichiquiwanick three ex- 

 cellent saw mills are seated, and there and downward that side 

 (the Maine side) of ye river have been gotten most of the masts 

 which have come for England, and, among the rest, that ad- 

 mired mast which came over some time last year, containing 

 nere 30 tunes of timber as I have been informed." 

 *Belknap's Hist. p. 483. 



