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Rivermen Reach Turners Falls
Logs are Smaller Than They Were a Few Years Ago.
The rear of the log drive has arrived at
Turners Falls and as is the custom about 60
who are hired to come to that place were
paid off and started for their homes in the
north. The drive this year contained between 50 and 60 million feet, a larger part of
which supplies the Turners Falls Lumber
company. The balance is taken to the Mt.
Tom mills. The logs are cut near Connecticut Lake, the logs are somewhat smaller than
the past few years but are of good quality.
The men begin to cut the logs about November and they are drawn by horses to the creeks
so that when the spring freshets come they
are carried into the river. The snow the past
winter was so deep that it interfered somewhat and reduced the drive to some extent.
The Connecticut lumber company has been
driving logs down the Connecticut river for
the past 18 or 20 years. The men are hardy,
good natured fellows, and most of them save
their earnings as they have families in the
north. The rivermen's life is a hard one and
at times quite dangerous, but the men enjoy
it and have good times in the camps coming
down the river. |
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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The log drive down the Connecticut was an annual ritual from the 1890s until about 1920. This drive brought spruce logs harvested in the far northwest portion of New Hampshire, at the series of lakes named Lake One through Four. The Turners Falls Lumber Company cut around nine million feet of lumber in 1895, only a fraction of the fifty to sixty million feet then being run past the mill, as this article notes, in 1900. By 1909, drives of around thirty-five million feet will be common, part of an overall declining trend.
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"Rivermen Reach Turners Falls"
publisher Greenfield Gazette and Courier |
date Jul 21, 1900 |
location Greenfield, Massachusetts |
height 3.5" |
width 2.25" |
process/materials printed paper, ink |
item type Periodicals/Newspaper |
accession # #L02.088 |
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