Lumbering in Allagash, Maine

LUMBERING
Over most of Allagash's history, lumbering has been it's staple of survival. The early settlers came to the area to cut pine timber on the St. John and Allagash Rivers, which was taken to Fredericton, New Brunswick by river drives. In many of the areas where timberlands were cleared, farms of hay and grain were started to support the lumber operations. Some of the familiar names of these settlements were Seven Islands, Castonguay Settlement, Michaud Farm and Cunliffe Depot.

Over the years lumbering took on many new faces. When Maine became a state in 1820, the area became a place to be developed. Dams were built, such as Locke Dam, which was built to change the directional flow of the waters in order to run log drives in the direction of Bangor, Maine. This opened a new market for lumbering. By 1909 many horses were replaced by the Lumbard Loghauler, which was used to haul logs to the landings on the rivers. Chainsaws and skidders replaced handsaws, horses and log haulers. The building of "wood roads" and the introduction of the log truck replaced log drives. By the mid 1980"s, the face of lumbering changed again when chainsaws and skidders were largely replaced with such equipment as the mechanical harvester, delimber, and fellabuncher.

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