Jessica's Sawmill

[Teegate]

All,

I was going to mention where we were today; however, as you will see I think it is best I don’t.

We went looking for various property corners in an area I suspect almost everyone here has been by quite often, and after visiting multiple locations we came up empty. We then walked along the Parker Preserve line looking for some clues to help in the search and was frustrated again, So we returned along the same route where at one point Jessica headed into a more easily traveled area and found what she said was cake. It turned out to be bread placed there by a hunter.

His stand in the distance.

I then headed back to my intended route but she noticed something in the distance, and in the end she had found another Sawmill.

The obligatory holes or depressions.

And the usual bolts. Notice the wood in the back that the bolt went through.

I played with my camera’s macro

A view from the other side.

It was time to leave when Jessica noticed someone coming towards us telling us we were on private property. Now I am quite familiar with the property lines in this area and had doubts about that, but one must be careful when confronting someone when there is a possibility I could have been wrong. I was informed that the Sawmill and a small plot of land around it had been in this mans friends family since the 1800’s. And just as he said this the man arrived. The first man seemed friendly, but the second man was hard to judge. It was his deer stand and he did not want us there. After several minutes of conversation they realized I was not going to cause them a problem and things became quite friendly. In fact, there is a real possibility that maxwellandson is related to him. His family were Maxwell’s, and he even has photo’s of them at the general store at Harrisville. Some of his family even lived near the location of this Sawmill. He gave me his name and phone number and told me he wanted to hear from me. So I will be calling and we are setting up a date to head out and hopefully I can get this private property situation cleared up and maybe see some old photo’s. In the end it appears that neither of them owned this property but had permission to use it. That is very interesting to me.

We then headed to Friendship Bogs where I checked out a recent bridge built by a member of this site. If you roam around out there keep an eye out for it. It lets one get places they normally could not. Very nice!

Then to Pleasant Mills where I discovered I had forgotten to enter the coordinates of where I wanted to go. Next location....home.


Guy

 

[james ungehajer]

Great photos as usual Guy, kudos to Jessica on the sawmill find. Were the monuments that you were looking for in your opinion stolen ?

Jim

 

[Teegate]

Great photos as usual Guy, kudos to Jessica on the sawmill find. Were the monuments that you were looking for in your opinion stolen ?

Jim

I only know where one is on that line, so I just followed the line hoping to find one. There are more I am sure of, I just have to find them. So I doubt they have been stolen, I just have not been good enough to find them.


Guy

 

[RednekF350]

Nice outing Guy and Jess.
I just walked past the one on the Albertson off 206 yesterday afternoon and I thought of you two.
That is the one where my son and I ran into you a few years ago while hunting.
That area is now almost completely swept clean of deer, unfortunately.

 

[Teegate]

That was a surprise to see you walk out of the woods

I am on the trail of more sawmills and hopefully before spring will find them. I have a good idea the area they are in.

Guy

 

[pinelandpaddler]

Nice find for Jessica.

I know we've discussed the purpose of those ditches that are common at the former sites of steam-powered saw mills, but did we find out for sure what purpose they served? Was it to store water?

 

[Sue Gremlin]

Ooh, what a great find! Do you know of that sawmill or is that a totally new find? Do you know anything about the history?

 

[Teegate]

Nice find for Jessica.

I know we've discussed the purpose of those ditches that are common at the former sites of steam-powered saw mills, but did we find out for sure what purpose they served? Was it to store water?

Gabe and Sue,

I am actively working on this but there are a few things I have learned since yesterday using a tip I was given by the man I met in the woods. He told me that his family lived near it in the 1890s and there were many houses nearby. So I did some aerial searching and sure enough I found the sawmill and unbelievably the houses he mentioned. They were still there in the 1930s and I am sure the sawmill was in operation then. Another tip he gave me also I believe will pan out, and by looking at aerials I believe what he said that there were many more sawmills nearby. I have pinpointed where I want to look and will be doing that in the weeks to come. I also will be calling him and setting up a date for him to show me what he knows, and I will do the same.

Gabe...I have no facts but I still believe that the depressions or holes in the ground were used to maneuver the logs into place.

Guy

 

[Teegate]

BTW, he even told me the name of the sawmill at Sandy Ridge. Unfortuanly, I have a terrible memory and can't remember what he said. I will find out.

Now that I have a camera with video and sound, I need to turn that on while talking to people even if the camera is not pointing at anything. He told me so much in that short amount of time and I am sure I had enough space on my card to have captured it. The pen Jessica had was so cold it barely wrote his name and number. I came right home and added it to my computer so I would not loose it.

Guy

 

[Jerseyman]

Folks:

Something I have been wanting to do for some time is provide a few images and some contemporary text about portable sawmills. The following two images are from the 1913 annual report from the Forest Reservation Commission of New Jersey. The first photograph depicts a set of horse-pulled high wheels moving timber to the nearby sawmill somewhere in Burlington County and the second image shows a portable sawmill in Somerset County:

The next image is from a treatise on lumber production and sawmills and shows a generic portable sawmill and its boiler and steam engine power source:

The following two extracts provide some technical information about portable sawmills, their set-up, and use:

Saw-Mills, 1896:
For log sawing a portable timber or reciprocating saw frame is to be preferred; all the working parts should combine strength with lightness as far as possible, so as to facilitate transport, and they should be extremely well made to avoid the chance of a breakdown. The carriage and side framing should be on the “box” system, which ensures increased rigidity and steadiness in working without increasing the weight. With this object in view the base of the frame should be bolted to long pieces of timber which should rest on the ground. The travelling wheels on which the frame is mounted should be let into the ground somewhat, and wedged up with pieces of wood. The general arrangement of the machine is similar to an ordinary log frame, and a moveable apparatus for cutting deals may or may not be fitted. It will be found preferable to drive the swing or saw frame by means of a bell crank from the main or crank shaft. The carriage carrying the machine should be arranged to turn at any angle, and the iron rails which support the timber carriages should be fixed on longitudinal timber, and set to a dead level. The timber carriages should be fitted with adjustable clips and transverse arrangement to facilitate the cutting of twisted or crooked logs. The frame may be driven by a belt direct from the engine. No countershaft on intermediate gear being necessary, it will be better to drive off a pulley fitted on the engine-crank shaft than off the flywheel itself.
A portable circular saw bench is also well adapted for forest use; it can be mounted on a pair of strong iron wheels, and fitted with shafts for a horse, so that it can readily be moved from place to place. It can be used with advantage in conjunction with a log frame, and if employed for edging flitches or deals two or more saws should be mounted on the spindle. The main frame of the bench should be case in one piece, and the travelling wheels mounted in slides, so that they need not be removed when the bench is required to work, but by means of a worm and worm-wheel, or other suitable gearing, the bench may be lowered to the ground, and the wheels stow themselves away below the top of the bench frame. A drag-rope feed saw bench is preferable to any other for forest use, except a rack bench, which is a rule too ponderous to be moved about with facility. If a rack saw bench is used, to secure portability, it should be constructed chiefly of hard wood, and so jointed that it may readily be taken to pieces. In all machines used in the forest, complication should be avoided, as, should a breakdown occur and the nearest engineer reside some hundreds of miles away, as is often the case, a great loss is occasioned; in fact, it is advisable that duplicate sets of bearings, etc., should be taken with the machines, and these could be fitted to their places by the engine-driver or sawyer.

Lumber, 1922
Small, portable, steam-sawmill plants are common in all forested regions of this country, but are most numerous in the Northeast, the Appalachians, the South, and the Rocky Mountain region. They have a daily capacity ranging from 3000 to 10,000 board feet, and their product is sometimes a disturbing factor in the lumber markets, because the cost of manufacturing lumber in a portable mill is often less than in a large one and, therefore, the lumber may be offered at a lower price.
The amount of timber cut at one “set-up” varies from a few thousand to several hundred thousand board feet. The plant is moved from one set-up to another on wheels, a shift of a few miles requiring usually about four days’ time, one day to dismantle the plant, one day to move it, and two days to set it up ready for operation. Four horses for hauling, the number depending on the character of the roads and the weight of the equipment. Where contract sawing is done by the owner of the mill, it is sometimes customary for the stumpage owner to pay for moving the plant to his property, and also to furnish fuel for the operation of the plant.

I hope to add more images and data to the above information as time permits, but I thought I could at least begin to impart this knowledge.

Best regards,
Jerseyman

 

[Teegate]

Okay, lets see if we can decided a few things with your posy Jerseyman. First, there is not a mention of them being bolted to the ground in the 1896 portion, so I would assume all of the sawmills we have found are from later years. Also,

The main frame of the bench should be case in one piece, and the traveling wheels mounted in slides, so that they need not be removed when the bench is required to work, but by means of a worm and worm-wheel, or other suitable gearing, the bench may be lowered to the ground, and the wheels stow themselves away below the top of the bench frame.

I wonder if they are referring to this?

Guy

 

[manumuskin]

Guy,

I have noticed that when being busted tresspassing or more often having the same thing happen to me where I'm not really tresspassing at all but someone thinks i am that the worse people to run into are not the actual owners but people like you did who have permission to be on the land.They seem to think that having permission makes them indebted to the owner to keep all others out.It's like a dog that knows his job is to protect what belongs to his benefactor.Obviously you ran into some reasonable folks,some are dobermans and there is no talking to them.I told you of the same thing happening to me back in november where a man caught me walking up weatherby road in camo and assumed i was tresspassing on gravel pit land because i was on that side of the road and was parked on that side of the road.Now I'm no saint when it comes to tresspassing but that day i was actually across the road on peasleees property stone seaqrching and he came over the hill in a truck just after i crossed the road to get to my truck.I wasn't even in the woods but he had permission to hunt on gravel pit land since he worked for them and he felt it his duty to bark at me for his boss dog.Fortunately as soon as showed him the stone pics i just took and explaining to him where i was and what i was doing the hair on his neck laid down and he licked my hand.We were buds by the time we parted ways.Glad to see you didn't get bit either
Al

 

[woodjin]

Nice report and a great find from Jessica. I am glad your encounter turned out to your benefit. I bet Jess was freaking a little when they first came up huh? I know how she is about tresspassing.

I am not surprised things turned out the way they did though. You have a calming presence about you.

Good luck when you meet up with this individual again. I am sure it will be an interesting event.

Thanks for the photos and information Jerseyman!! In all the old photos I am amazed by how sparse the woods were compared to today.

jeff

 

[bobpbx]

Very interesting!

Nice find Jess. Not everyone is lucky enough to find a little dough.

Nice macro shot Guy.

Thanks for the sawmill history Jerseyman.

 

[Teegate]

Nice macro shot Guy.

Finally I can take them

Guy

 

[Kevinhooa]

Sawmills

Thanks for that info Jerseyman, that is really interesting. I wonder how much some of the wood was going for price wise back then?

Kevin