TURNERS FALLS BOAT CLUBS TO INSIST ON OPEN RIVER.

Expect Log Drive to Block the Stream But 10 days at the End of the Season.

W.S. Dana of Boston, who represents the boat clubs at Turners Falls desireing to keep the river open for boating during the logging season, has notified Mr. Van Dyke of the Connecticut Valley Lumber Company that the company must live up to its license strictly, or legal proceedings will be taken to compel such adherence.

The Turners Falls people interested in this matter are determined to have the river kept open a reasonable amount during the logging season. They say there is no doubt that they could make the logging company pay $15,000 to $20,000 to establish such booms as would keep a passage open all the time. They do not however propose to be as stiff as this, if the company is reasonable.

They expect that the company will be able to get along with blockages of but 24 hours at a time, except at the end of the drive, when the river will have to be blocked a week or 10 days. The whole period will be from six to eight weeks, but except during the last of this time, the river will be open, they expect, but with slight interruptions. At the last of the drive the logs that have lodged about the French Kings and elsewhere are rounded up, necessitating quite a little jam.

Before the boating interests at Turners Falls began to agitate the matter there was needless delay in getting the logs along. Some of the rivermen were discharged when they got to Turners Falls so that more help was needed to hustle the logs along. Last year, owing to the recent agitation, it is felt that the drive went through fairly promptly. The large amount of water this season, due largely to recent heavy rains, will help slide the drive along. There has been three to five feet going over the dam for several weeks. Often at this time there is two feet or less. The drive is a little behind time and is not expected before next week.

The company's license to use the river expires in August, and if the logs are not moved along this year as the company gave reason to expect, the Turners Falls boating interests will be in a position to demand further restrictions.

The fleet of boats at Turners Falls is steadily increasing, and the demand that the river be kept clear will grow stronger all the time. A new addition to the fleet is a launch capable of carrying about 25 people, which it is expected will run regular trips later.
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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The annual log drives down the Connecticut River filled the river with logs and blocked any other use of the river. Boatmen, who moved trade up and down the river, had often complained that the logging interests had monopolized the river. In some years, booms were built to allow some passage of the river, but they were expensive and time-consuming to build and maintain as they were prone to breaks. The Turners Falls Boat Club had somewhat more influence than the average working boatmen, as it was made up of men of wealth who used the river for their recreation. The conflict detailed in this article came near the end of the log-driving era and the problems here would soon be resolved. Intense logging of the Connecticut Valley watershed of the 1880s to early 1900s would soon mostly deforest the region, and log drives would become a thing of the past.

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