hardly merited the title of being called "a one horse 

 affair." It was leased from a Frenchman who had 

 been running it part time before the Americans ar- 

 rived. The machinery was old, as well as old fashion- 

 ed; the saws were probably made of tin or something 

 worse. Every fine in the boiler leaked, and in general 

 it was nothing to get enthused over. It was located 

 near the center of the village, which was said to have 

 had a population of nearly 3,000 before the war. 

 However, it covered no such amount of territory as an 

 American town of 3.000 inhabitants would. The mill 

 was located on a very narrow alley-like street in 

 which two wheel barrows would have had difficulty 

 in passing one another. The street was not paved and 

 we were soon forced to plank it in order to get in 

 with the trucks. 



The engine and boiler were of German manufacture, 

 as was all of the machinery of the mill itself. From 

 the date plates on the engine and machinery it ap- 

 peared that the mill had been constructed some time 

 in the seventies, probably in 1874. The engine was 

 of about 25 horse power as near as, we could deter- 

 mine. We were always handicapped by a lack of 

 power. The engine was in better shape than the boil- 

 er. The boiler was not provided with an injector but 

 had an antiquated type of pump which always caus- 

 ed trouble. Wood slabs were used for fuel. They 

 were burned in a Dutch oven which we built to in- 

 crease the size of the firebox. The wood was wet and 

 green most of the time and often we would run short 

 of steam. The mill machinery consisted of three saws, 

 one head saw and two resaws. Each was poorer than 



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