226 



CONDITIONS BY COUNTIES. 



-streams of the county but the exact number of these is not 

 known and the date of the first operation is problematical. 

 Joseph Martin, author of the ''Gazetteer of Virginia and the 

 District of Columbia," published in 1835, lists 1 saw mill and 

 2 tan yards for Pendleton county. It is probable, however, that 

 1835 is not the date of the beginning of saw mill operations. 

 Three sash saw mills are still run at irregular intervals in the 

 county. Small portable saw mills, numbering 2 or 3 in the 

 seventies, and about 20 at present, have done most of the sawing 

 so far. These mills, with a few exceptions only, are moved from 

 place to place with traction engines. In the winter they saw 

 for the farmers and in the summer and fall the engines are 

 used to thresh their grain. A larger circular sav\^ mill was 

 operated on Big run of North Fork several years ago by the 

 Parsons Pulp and Lumber Company. This company^ with a large 

 band mill al Horton, in Randolph county, has recently built 

 lumber railroads across the divide between the waters of the 

 Cheat and the Potomac and has already cut much of the spruce 

 and other timber on Big run and on Seneca creek. 



About 25 years ago Capt. J. H. Daugherty and Geo. W. 

 and D. W. Eagle were all engaged in buying and shipping 

 walnut lumber sawed on the small mills running on the South 

 Branch in the vicinity of Upper Tract and on the North Fork 

 above the mouth of Seneca creek. Most of this lumber was 

 hauled on wagons to the railroad at Keyser, Mineral county, a 

 distance of about 70 miles. The quality of the walnut lumber 

 was good but much of it had to be classed as culls on account 

 of its poor manufacture. Since 1905 most of the walnut timber 

 that remained in the county has been bought and taken out in 

 the log. 



One of the chief uses made of white pine was for shingles, 

 a large number of which were hauled in wagons to the Valley 

 of Virginia and other places between the years 1860 and 1900. 



The Present Forest Conditions. 



In consequence of the limited lumber industry in the 

 county most of the wooded area has remained to the present 

 in a virgin state. Of the 140,000 acres, approximately, of tim- 



