There were no railroads or canals. Such lumber as was not used by local consumers had to be got to market by some other method. The cheapest and simplest way was rafting the lumber to the larger towns. It is interesting to note that the first lumber sawed in Arthur Noble's mill in Herkimer County in 1790 was consigned to Ireland. It was rafted down West Canada Creek, thence down the Mohawk to the falls at Cohoes; then taken by wagon to Albany and loaded into sloops for transfer across the Atlantic. Edward Edwards built a sawmill on the Onondaga, in Broome County in 1796 and ran the first raft on the Chenango River. Jesse Dickinson ran the first raft down the west branch of the Delaware River about 1788. This lumber was floated clear to Philadelphia. Lumber was rafted out of the Conewango into the Upper Allegheny and finally to Pittsburg. In fact, every river in the State was used by the lumbermen annually for floating lumber to market, and it was some time after the advent of the railroad before this method of transportation became obsolete. The lumber raft passed out of use about 1880. The custom on the Hudson was to raft lumber to Albany and there load it in sailing vessels bound for New York or across the ocean, although, as elsewhere stated, in early days a good many small rafts supplied lumber to yards on the lower Hudson, and were floated even as far as New York City.

LUMBER RAFTING METHODS.

The method of rafting was simple. The pine and hemlock were laid from twenty-four to thirty courses deep, several courses projecting above the surface of the water. Each course was laid at right angles to the preceding one, and this served to hold the lumber together. As most of the lumber was in sixteen-foot lengths, the lumber squares thus formed measured sixteen feet on each edge. These were made into a raft. The customary size of a raft was 148 feet in width and 160 feet long. A raft of this size, containing twenty-five courses, would include 180,000 feet of lumber or more. In addition, a deck load of shingles or dressed lumber was often taken along for sale at some market en route. The rafting crew lived on the raft, in rough shanties erected for the purpose. Three oars on each side of the raft permitted it to be handled in the river. The crew included twelve or eighteen men. When there was good water a raft would make from forty to fifty miles a day, tying up at the bank at night. This method of handling lumber developed a peculiar craft, that of the raftsman, and the men attained much skill in avoiding shallows and collisions with bridge piers. The pioneer lumbermen claim that rafted lumber was better than lumber conveyed overland, as the immersion in the river removed much of the sap. It must be admitted, however, that it also took up a great deal of mud and dirt on the way. When the lumber reached the planing mill it carried an amount of grit which made considerable trouble

for the filers. Hewed timber was conveyed in this way also and in some parts of the East it is still stored in booms, awaiting sale.

Actual log driving was begun by Norman and Alanson Fox in 1813 on the upper Hudson and soon became the method of transportation in all that country. The sorting was a natural outgrowth and in 1849 the Hudson River Boom Association was formed for common protection and coöperative action. The maximum of logs handled was reached in 1872 when, at the big boom of Glens Falls, almost 200,000,000 feet of logs were sorted. It was magnificent timber, too, for nothing less than twelve inches was cut.

The record of the Hudson River drives as preserved by the Hudson River Boom Association, Glens Falls, and as reported by E. D. Simmons, secretary, is as follows:

RECORD OF HUDSON RIVER LOG SORTING.
Statement of Sawlogs Put in the Hudson River and Its Tributaries-1850 to 1905.

number of standards scaled at the A standard, on the Hudson River, long and nineteen inches in diamLogs longer or shorter, or of greater

The above table is a record of the Glens Falls boom in the years named. is the equivalent of a log thirteen feet eter inside the bark at the small end. or less diameter, are reduced to this standard, so that the figures given do not represent the actual number of pieces of timber but the number of standards to which the actual timber has been reduced. Such a standard log, by the Scribner rule, contains 195 feet board measure; by the Doyle rule, 183 feet, but, according to the secretary of the association, the Hudson River Boom Association allows 186 feet for each standard. On this basis, a total of 26,606,396 nineteen-inch standards, accounted for during

fifty-four years of operation, would measure 4,948,789,656 feet board measure. This is an average, for the entire period, of 91,644,253 feet annually. As stated before, the highest record was in 1872 and was 189,940,392 feet. In 1904 the output was 50,385,354 feet. Formerly, the entire product of the Hudson River was of sawmill timber, but now much of the output is devoted to the pulp business.

REMINISCENCES OF EARLY DAYS.

Many reminiscences are available, some of them of historical value and some principally of sentimental interest, regarding the lumber industry in its development in northeastern New York. But space does not permit extended use of such material, and, therefore, only a few can be quoted.

Whitehall, New York, at the head of the Champlain Canal, connecting Lake Champlain with the Hudson River, is also at the head of Lake Champlain. Before the opening of the canal, in 1822, the timber of the Adirondack region, tributary by stream or sled haul to Lake Champlain, was largely sent down the Sorel River to Quebec and thence exported. Even before the opening of that canal, however, as has been elsewhere stated, there were a few mills located near the upper, or southern, end of Lake Champlain which transported their product by sleighs, during the winter season, to the Hudson River, by which it was forwarded to Albany, New York and other Hudson River points. In an article regarding Whitehall, published in 1875, in a predecessor of the American Lumberman3, there are interesting reminiscences concerning the early part of the Nineteenth Century. The following is quoted from that article:

Within the life of men now living, before the wilds of Upper Canada were penetrated by the white man or its inexhaustible timber wealth was discovered, the timber market of Quebec was supplied from the shore of Lake Champlain, Whitehall contributing in no small degree to the wants of her Canadian neighbor. In the spring of 1812 Kegs, Stafford & Hoyle got together a large raft of pine timber at Peru, New York, on the west side of the lake, and started on a voyage. When outside of Valcour Island the raft was broken up by a heavy north wind and the timber was scattered broadcast, but, as the wind continued in the same direction, the timber was driven on shore at Quaker Smith Bay, Shelburne, Vermont. Our informant states that he was employed in gathering this timber together, rerafting it, etc., and afterward he went with the raft to Quebec, arriving there at the time of the declaration of the War of 1812. The English government confiscated the timber, and the crew "skedaddled" back to the States as best they could.

For a time the trade was interrupted by the war which followed. Subsequently it was resumed, but only for a season. Soon after that time the upper portion of Canada was undergoing settlement, and the supply which had been coming from the States was derived from its own resources. As early as 1818 Melancthon Wheeler, late of this place, was engaged in the lumber trade, and a few yet survive who speak of its magnitude of that day, and with animation recount the many incidents connected The Lumberman's Gazette, January 30, 1875, page 7.