Editor’s note: This commentary is by David Deen, who is the river steward for the Connecticut River Watershed Council and a state representative from Putney. He is the chair of the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee.
[L]og drives were the largest economic activity that took place directly on the Connecticut River for some 180 years. The drives started below Enfield, Connecticut, in 1760 and lasted until the last pulpwood drive in the upper river in 1949. There are no estimates of how many millions of board feet of lumber and pulpwood in total floated down the river to mills over all those years. Consider though, the Connecticut River Valley Lumber Co., later becoming the Connecticut Valley Lumber Co. (CVL) as only one of the major logging companies, from its founding in 1879 to 1915 moved an average of 50 million board feet of lumber in each of their spring drives. The total was immense.
Many of the largest companies owned the land, the mills and ran the logging crews in the woods. An example of the integrated logging operation was put together by entrepreneur David Sumner in 1805. He built a sawmill and a canal to bypass the Sumner Falls that stretch between Hartland, Vermont, and Plainfield, New Hampshire. He milled wood from his own timberland, his mill was so active, and his lumber floats so numerous that in the early 1800s, according to sources, people built most of the homes in Hartford, Connecticut, with his lumber.
Logs drives down the river started as rafts, logs held together using wooden pegs hammered through cross logs into the commercial logs below it to form the raft. With the advent of dams along the course of the drives, rafts became less functional and loose log drives began. In 1868, the first free-floating log drive came down from Indian Stream at the headwaters of the Connecticut River and went all the way to Massachusetts. It was more efficient to sluice free-floating logs over the dams then getting a raft over the same dams. This change ushered in a new hero, the riverman. In the North Country, the image of the riverman rivaled that of the later day cowboy.
When the notice went out that this would be the last drive to the lower mills, men throughout New England signed up in droves to be part of history. That winter CVL put 2,000 lumberjacks in the woods cutting timber and when the 500 rivermen started the drive in the spring of 1915, they sent 60 million board feet down the river.
People admired the riverman as an icon of strength, agility and bravery for 60 years. Unfortunately, the myth belied the reality. Cold water, long workdays and the dangerous unexpected were the realities. Few died of pneumonia on the drives but many survivors suffered rheumatism in their later years.
And just like the cowboy, rivermen dealt with rustlers. Even closely tended logs had a mind of their own and could end up on the shore if pushed there by a back eddy or a high water event. The timber was just too tempting and those inclined to filch a log or two would use oxen to drag the logs off to the closest sawmill for quick conversion into lumber. It was illegal of course, but catching people in the act along the entire length of a log drive was difficult at best. One rustler did not think his nefarious actions all the way through. When the sheriff showed up the logs had been quickly milled into beams already but the newly cut lumber still had the dark blue mark painted onto the butt ends of all CVL logs.
Then the word hit the north woods, what was thought to be a forever activity wasn’t. The spring 1915 log drive would be the last major long drive by CVL. This essentially meant the era of long drives was over. When the notice went out that this would be the last drive to the lower mills, men throughout New England signed up in droves to be part of history. That winter CVL put 2,000 lumberjacks in the woods cutting timber and when the 500 rivermen started the drive in the spring of 1915, they sent 60 million board feet down the river. International Paper added another 18 million board feet and 15,000 cords of pulpwood cut from the White River watershed. This may have been the last drive but it was one of the largest. At least one newspaper recorded that when the first logs floated into Bellows Falls, Vermont, the upriver end of the drive was just below 15 Mile Falls in Barnet, Vermont, roughly 80 river miles upstream.
Economics ended the logs drives. More than a century of cutting the old growth stands of timber diminished the size of trees. Mounting costs, included pressure from factory owners and their employees who went without work for weeks on end because sluicing logs over the dams used all the water available leaving no water power to run the factories. Continued damage to bridges, river banks and meadows from log jams had the logging companies facing lawsuits in court on a regular basis. Less money for smaller logs, more grumbling and more lawsuits sounded the death knell for the Connecticut River long log drives.
Drives moving pulpwood short distances to rail or trucking centers continued for the next 33 years. The last of the river drives was in 1949. The land that CVL consolidated from other companies was sold in 1927 to St. Regis Paper Co. St. Regis recouped nearly the entire purchase price by selling flowage and water rights to the New England Power Association. Even in 1927, hydroelectric power was thought to be the future work of the Connecticut River. It remains so today.
