frturrn'x Grtfiings Frn-Tex oF NoRTHERN cALIFoRNIA

WAREHOUSES

(Continued from Page 37) mills at New Amsterdam in 1623. Take your pick. But out of all this evidence, one fact stands startlingly clearlumbering dates back to the earliest days of white man's settlement in our land.

Output Small

The early American sawmills were very small and primitive, some of them cutting no more than 500 feet of pine a day. Mostly they used water power. They consisted of an old-style water wheel connected by a crank to a rectangular "sash" sliding in vertical grooves. A single vertical saw blade was strained taut in the sash, and by up and down movement it bit slowly into the log. At first the log was fed by hand, but later a primitive form of ratchet feed, connected with the water power, pushed the log along.

Daniel. Webster's father had a sau'mill in New Hampshire which young Dan used to like to operate because he stated that when he put the 1og into position and started the saw he had sixteen minutes for rest or reading before the log again acquired attention. "An amusing but possibly exagerated industry legend has it that in operating one of these old sash mills," reports Stanley Horn in his "This Fascinating Lumber Business," "the operator .rvould start a cut soon after breakfast and then go out in the field and

"J aud the longer timbers for construction work were cotlrmonly hervn out r.l'ith adze and broadaxe until after the Civil War.

The circular stw was introduced about 1820, although earlier and more crude forms of this instrument rn,ere made: many years before. A blacksmith named Benjamin Cur.nmings of Bentonville, Neu. York, made the first circular saw ever produceC in America in his blacksrnith shop rn,ith the ordinary tools of his craft, according to Sam Stepher-rs in his book i'Trees." The first revotrving salv is saicl to have had only tu'o teeth. Xlen continu"J to rvork on iruplovements, and la{er four. teeth u'ere used. There rvas still rContinued on Page 44.;

Ecrly type

plorv all morning. By noon that cut rvould be finished anrl he would set the log over for another cut and go home tr., dinner." Be that as it may, the fact is that the first satvmills produced little more lumber a day than would a pair of husky pit sawyers.

Each small village had its mill, often combined lvith the grist mill and the lumber n'as largely psed lqCalll. Im_ provements rvere introduced from time to time. The fir-st advance rvas the use of several parallel sarvs in the sash so that several boards tvere cut at the sanre time. This uras the gang saw. As early as 1676 gangs of fourteen saws u'ere in operation in the Moharvk Valley. Somewhat later came the muley sarv, u'hich rvas simply a vertical sa.iv which dispensed rvith the heavy "sash." This change speeded the sawing and raised its cut from 2,000 to 5,000 feet a day. Logs sawn rvere usually comparativelv short

Over $I'OOOTOOO.OO Yerlucrtion

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