| Logging On The Connecticut River Logging on the Connecticut River began in the second half of the 18th century. By the early 1800's, with construction of bridges and locks along the river to aid travel by boat and carriage, laws were enacted requiring "all Pine Timber found floating in said Connecticut River [must be] rafted, or under immediate care of some person or persons." ["An Act Regulating the Mode of Putting Pine-timber into the Connecticut River," New Hampshire State Legislature, 1808.]
Thus was born an industry comprised of hard and rugged men. Logging and rafting required strength, skill and stamina. Often there was fierce competition among the men as to who could stay atop a rolling log in the water, who could loosen the worst log jams, and after work was done, who could drink the most and tell the tallest tales. A logger's life could be perilous: "The log drives down the Connecticut were some of the longest in the world... It was a hazardous journey; many men lost their lives when they slipped and fell beneath the fast-moving logs. Obstacles were ever present. Logs jammed up behind bridges... numerous rapids and falls impeded the lumber."
[Jerold Wikoff, "The Upper Valley: An Illustrated Tour Along the Connecticut River Before the Twentieth Century."]
On log drives, “the principal form of recreation during the lonely winter months in the bunkhouses was singing and composing ballads. The life was hard, the work was arduous, and the lumberjack was threatened by danger in the woods, on the skid roads, and on the wild river drives. Some of his ballads seem overly sentimental to us today, but they capture, as no other literature does, the period and the feelings of these men who supplied the lumber for the growth of a young nation:‘The choppers and the sawyers, they lay the timber low,
The skidders and the swampers, they holler to and fro,
Next come the sassy loaders before the break of day,
‘Come load your teams, my bully boys, and to the woods away.’”
Historic facts:
Logging of eastern forests fueled the expansion of settlements to the western plains where lumber for building was scarce. In 1909, 44 billion board feet of lumber were cut- more than was cut at any time before or since.
[From "Encyclopedia Americana Online.]
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