286 CONDITIONS BY COUNTIES. 



undisturbed a few years ago, presents a picture of desolation. 

 Except for here and there a clump of spruces or hardwoods 

 that have been protected from the fire by streams or marshes, 

 and a fringe of balsam firs surroimding McDonald Glade, all 

 the mature timber on the lower half of Canaan Valley is gone. 

 The same condition exists, also, over broad belts on both sides 

 of the railroad to the^ north of Thomas, and, to a great extent, 

 on the cut-over mountains southward from the Cheat river. In 

 many places "Fire Cherries" and yellow birches have sprung 

 up, and occasionally more valuable species, but all these alike 

 are soon killed by fire. 



The Lumber Industry. 



The lumber industry in Tucker county divides itself, natul- 

 ally, into 3 periods. These are the period of sash saw mills, run 

 by water power, the period of portable steam saw mills, and the 

 period of large stationary mills. To some extent the first period 

 overlapped the second, and the second continues with the third 

 which, doubtless, it will outlive for many years. 



Arnold Bonnifield built a sash saw mill on the Cheat river 

 as early as 1830. This he ran continually for 35 years. The 

 first lumber that went out of the county was from this mill and 

 was used in the construction of the bridge where the North- 

 western Turnpike crosses the Cheat river 6 miles above Rowles- 

 burg. N. M. and Geo. M. Farsons operated a sash mill in the 

 county at an early date, and a little later, we are told, '*]\Iills 

 of this kind became numerous all over the County." Rufus 

 Maxwell built a mill known as a "muley-mill" in 1865. This 

 was an improvement on the sash mills for the reason that it 

 worked faster, giving about 300 strokes of the saw to the minute. 



"With the coming of the steam mills, shortly after the close 

 of the Civil War, the lumber industry took on new life. The 

 largest operator of this period was C. R. Macomber who sur- 

 passed all the others in the quantity of lumber sawed. His op- 

 erations were in the white pine belt, principally, from 1874 to 

 1884. Other portable mills were Taylor's Mill on Shavers Fork, 

 Howe's Mill and Sterling's Mil, as well as one on Black Fork 

 and one in Canaan Valley. Rufus Maxwell, Abraham and 



