334 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



making in America. The eye of the colonial 

 governor was on trade opportunities, and he 

 saw them in the wealth of trees in every 

 valley and on every mountain. They went 

 to work as soon as possible to build mills. 

 The dates and the locations of the very 

 earliest sawmills in the present territory of 

 the United States are doubtful ; but there 



STACKING LUMBER BY MACHINERY 



This reaches the high point of efficiency in the handling 

 of lumber, accomplishing a maximum of labor with a 

 minimum expenditure of time and effort. 



seems to be no question that there were 

 water power sawmills in New England with- 

 in ten years after the first settlement at 

 Plymouth. That was speedy work when the 

 fewness of the colonists, the difficulties of 

 procuring machinery, and the limited market 

 for lumber are considered. The Virginians 

 were not much behind the New Englanders 

 in mill building. It is believed that New 

 York's earliest sawmills, or some of them, 

 were driven by wind power. The knowledge 

 of windmills was brought over by Dutch 

 settlers. 



Sawing by man power continued side by 

 side with water power, not only during very 

 early American history, but down almost to 

 the present. It was called pitsawing, and 

 two men manipulated the saw, one on top 

 of the log and the other in a pit under the 

 log. However, it was more usual to raise 

 the log on a scaffold, so that the man be- 

 neath could stand erect. The log was first 



hewed square, and with paint, chalk, charcoal, or keel, the lines to 

 be followed by the saw were marked on the flat upper side of the 

 log. Two men could saw about 100 feet of lumber a day. The 

 saw was given a stroke of three or four feet, and the operation was 

 slow, crude work. Yet it held its place a remarkably long time, if 

 it has even yet gone wholly out of use. The West Virginia Geologi- 

 cal Survey Report of 1910 stated that pitsawing was in use in 

 sparsely settled districts of that state "within the past five years." 

 A house was standing a few years ago, and may still be standing, 

 in Tucker county, West Virginia, that was built after the Civil War 

 of cherry lumber that was made by pitsawing. In Bodega county, 

 California, the pits are still pointed out where the Russians sawed 

 redwood with pitsaws ; while, to go a little farther from home, but 

 nearer in time, American army officers, during Aguinaldo's insurrec- 

 tion in the Philippines, pitsawed Philippine mahogany for bridge 

 planks and other military works in the islands, and miners along 

 Alaska's rivers still saw boat planks by that process, if beyond reach 

 of sawmills. 



During the height of the salt industry in the Kanawha valley, 

 nearly a century ago, builders of barges for carrying the salt down 

 the Ohio river, cut enormous yellow poplar barge sides by pitsawing, 

 though sawmills were then in reach. No sawmill then could saw 

 planks so large as those demanded by the boat builders. Some of 

 the planks were reported to be 80 feet long, three feet wide, 

 and four inches thick cut by hand from the gigantic poles of 

 the poplars that grew on the banks of the Kanawha, the Coal, 

 and the Ohio rivers. The earliest water mills in use were driven 



by wheels known as 

 overshot, undershot, 

 pitchback, breast, 

 flutter, or some other 

 descriptive name, and 

 mills so driven are 

 still found in some 

 rural districts. The 

 turbine came later, 

 after men had learned 

 how to use water 

 economically by ob- 

 taining high pressure. 

 Then came the steam 

 mill, which is with us 

 yet. 



ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY YEARS OF SERVICE ^ e P rmc 'P a ^ types 



This old crank began driving an up-and-down saw 140 of mill SaWS have 



years ago, and has been at it much of the time since, 



though it now lies abandoned in a trash pile where its been ill Use a longf 



last work was done. In 1776 a pack horse carried it across 



the Allegheny Mountain from Winchester, Virginia, to time. The Sash Or 



Cheat river. The photograph for the cut was taken in 1916. 



gate saw was held 

 rigidly in a frame and had an up-and-down motion, the frame 

 moving with the saw. The gang that came about 1650 had several 

 saws instead of one, all in the same sash and of course, all striking 

 simultaneously. The muley differed from the sash saw in that 

 the saw moved between guides and the frame was stationary. The 

 circular saw made its appearance about 1790, and the bandsaw in 

 1808; but the bandsaw, because of difficulties in manufacture, was 

 a long time in attaining success. The early attempts failed because 

 the saws were liable to pull apart at the point of brazing. 



The saw of today is a marked improvement over those used in 

 sawmills one and two centuries ago. The modern tool is made of 



