The Lumber Trade in New England. 103 



be utilized. When Mr. Bridget went to New Hampshire to 

 enter upon his duties as surveyor, he wrote home that there 

 were over seventy saw-mills on the Piscataqua.^ Daniel Neal, 

 who wrote in 1720, speaking of the advantages of the Pisca- 

 taqua and its branches, says: "This is the principal place of 

 trade for masts of any of the king's dominion. Three or four 

 vessels go hence yearly, for the use of the royal navy. Here 

 are ninety saws carried by water-power, and one hundred and 

 thirty teams of oxen constantly employed in drawing logs of 

 timber to the saws." He estimated that, at tliat time, upwards 

 of six million feet of timber was cut annually, most of which was 

 transported to Boston and the West Indies.^ The supply seemed 

 so inexhaustible that the cutters in their haste recklessly and 

 promiscuously destroyed the largest trees for making clap- 

 boards, shingles and pipe staves. Even the agent of one of 

 the contractors for the royal navy admitted that he saved only 

 one in four. In 1712, Falmouth (Portland) became the chief 

 port of export for masts, instead of Piscataqua (Portsmouth), 

 and this change of center marked an important step in the prog- 

 ress of the timber industry, while the removal of duties on lum- 

 ber, in 1722, greatly increased the export, especially of heavy 

 unwrought timber. Fleets of vessels of 400 tons, built for the 

 exclusive transport of masts, sailed from Falmouth every year; 

 so that, in order to satisfy the demand for heavy timber, the 

 woodsmen began to cut along the Connecticut River in Massa- 

 chusetts and Connecticut, as well as in New Hampshire.'' 



Coincident with the rapid increase of the lumber trade was, 

 of course, the growth of ship-building. "Of all the American 

 plantations," said Josiah Child, "His Majesty hath none so apt 

 for the building of shipping as New England, nor none com- 

 parably so qualified for the breeding of seamen, not only by 

 reason of the natural industry of that people, but principally by 



'Mr. Bridger to the Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., Q: 53. 

 2" History of New England," Chapter on " The Present State of 

 New England." 

 ■HVeeden, p. 578. 



