WHAT DO YOU KNOW?
BY MARSHALL HUDSON
I
’m on the Pontook flowage up in Dummer headed south following the Androscoggin. The river is flowing freely now, but 100 years ago it would have been jammed with activity as log drivers floated their winter’s work downriver to the mills. Folklore says that during these spring log drives there were so many logs in the river you couldn’t throw a line in to fish, and you could walk across the river blindfolded on floating logs without getting your feet wet. Old photos seem to bear out these legends as having a kernel of truth to them. The spring log drive was the final step in the process of timbering the remote areas of northern New Hampshire. During the winter, logging crews would move into their camps, chopping down trees until spring, and hauling the logs and pulpwood to the riverbank. Sometimes the logs were hauled to temporarily dammed brooks and streams
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that fed into the Androscoggin. When the ice thawed and water levels rose, the logs were rolled into the river and the drive commenced. Log drives typically began at ice-out, and the temporary dams would be breached, sending a massive wall of water and logs gushing into the river. River drivers would ride the logs, guiding them downriver to the mills. It was dangerous work — with water temperatures near freezing, a misstep could mean death. As I follow the river, I’m noticing small rocky islands poking through the surface of the water. There are almost 100 of these rocky outposts up the center of the river, starting around the Milan-Dummer town line and ending 8 or 9 miles downriver at the dam in Berlin. At first glance, they look like ordinary rocky islands in the wide flat river, but with a closer look they are too perfectly aligned, and the spacing between
coos county historical society
Pieces of NH’s logging past remain
them is too uniform to have occurred naturally. These islands are manmade. But why? And how? The story of these little islands begins in the late 1800s. At that time, the banks of the Androscoggin were lined with mills that all required logs. These mills relied on the vast forests above Berlin to supply them with the logs they needed for the manufacturing of their products. Wood that was harvested from these forests and floated downstream during the annual spring drive was destined for one mill or another, and massive amounts of individual logs were driven downriver like herds of cattle. All these logs, however, had different owners. With five or more companies using the Androscoggin River as a floating highway at the same time, the river became congested and logs intermingled. Keeping track of this wood was a major concern for all involved. Both the big and small companies needed easy access to their floating logs, and all had the legal
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Glimpse of History
The making of a boom pier
photo courtesy of berlin
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