Hello, I thought I would start a conversation on - lumber ! I read earlier this month about people either carrying wood / lumber a long distance in order to start building a house or building. Or, if a train was available, lumber was brought to them that way. And, of course, if very early settlers had a "horse & wagon," they could use them. And, if you read on the early history of New England, and probably the Maritime Provinces, important trees were found here. And people in England wanted some of that wood ! So, businesses were started ! If you watch "Antiques Roadshow," you often hear the furniture experts mentioning the special wood that a piece of furniture was made of. If my memory is working correctly, "White Pine" is one that is mostly found in New England. Are there special trees which are found in Canada and not so much found in the US? Of course, the very early houses / cabins / shacks in the 1600's on the East Coast and 1700's after people starting heading west of there -- had to become lumbermen ! If they wanted a house to live in, they needed to cut down / chop down a few trees. Think of all the tools these settlers would have needed in order to get the wood into a shape which was needed to build a cabin. How many of you have ever cut down a tree? Or skinned the bark off of a tree? I have. In the 1950's, my father was fortunate enough to find a piece of land in MA but on the NH border which was available for sale at a reasonable price. It was all woods. In order to have a clearing to put tents on, or build a small shack, my siblings and I had to help cut down a few trees. We learned about "2-man saws." And then he had one sister and I build a very small A-frame house. With his help, we did it. Once built we could set up the cots and sleeping bags inside it. And, he found that land because it was a couple miles from a "State Park" which we visited all during the 1950's and 1960's. "Willard Brook State Forest" had 4, authentic Log Cabins in it, and people could rent them for a week or 2 - at a very reasonable price. As children, we loved those cabins. In the 1950's there were "no" utilities. So, we were "roughing it." And, how many of you had an ancestor who had a sawmill or worked at one? My Calvin KIDDER from southern NH went to New Brunswick ~1784. He was 18 or 19, and we don't know how he spent the next 15 years. But, when we first find him, he was a part-owner of the "Harmony Sawmill" on the shore of the (then) Schoodic River. I was told that, when you were a part-owner, that meant you owned which part of the day you were allowed to use the sawmill. For instance, maybe he was able to use it from 2 am to 4 am. He sold it around the time he got married to Mercy GREENLAW in the summer of 1798. Betty (near Lowell, MA, USA) List Administrator (We're still looking for the parents of Mercy GREENLAW. My new idea this summer is that she was related to the GREENLAW siblings who left Maine and went to St. Andrew's, NB, during the 1700's as Loyalists. And, adding to that idea, I'm now wondering if Calvin was on the mailboat with the other men - because he wanted to get to St. Andrew's to "announce the birth of his son." That boat (sailboat) overturned and all 5 men were killed. Calvin's first child was born one week before that. This "Melancholy Accident" was mentioned in the newspapers of the time (Feb. 1799).)

Betty There are only a few of things I can speak to in your email - which of course is like others that always get me thinking! I like where you take us. My grandfather used to tell me about when they built the Cog Railway up Mt. Washington in NH and about how they used teams of oxen to pull the lumber from Vermont to build the tracks, or the framing for the tracks. This was in a much later time frame than you wrote about, but I would guess it was an old way of doing things! I am reading the History of Yarmouth, nicely reprinted as a paperback, and one of the earliest settlers there built a sawmill. The trees in the Salem area were so tall and straight that many of them were cut and shipped to England to be used as ships' masts. The house in which I grew up was built in 1825 but even then the builder could use 1 plank of lumber laid sideways as wainscoting! I can't imagine how big were the trees that were that produced finished planks the width of which were 3 feet! We did some tree felling in Girl Scouts but they were tiny trees! Thanks for some interesting things about which to think Faye -----Original Message----- From: can-usa-migration-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:can-usa-migration-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Betty Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2009 6:34 AM To: can-usa-migration@rootsweb.com Subject: [CAN-USA-MIG] "Lumber" Exporting it to Where you Want to Build Hello, I thought I would start a conversation on - lumber ! I read earlier this month about people either carrying wood / lumber a long distance in order to start building a house or building. Or, if a train was available, lumber was brought to them that way. And, of course, if very early settlers had a "horse & wagon," they could use them. And, if you read on the early history of New England, and probably the Maritime Provinces, important trees were found here. And people in England wanted some of that wood ! So, businesses were started ! If you watch "Antiques Roadshow," you often hear the furniture experts mentioning the special wood that a piece of furniture was made of. If my memory is working correctly, "White Pine" is one that is mostly found in New England. Are there special trees which are found in Canada and not so much found in the US? Of course, the very early houses / cabins / shacks in the 1600's on the East Coast and 1700's after people starting heading west of there -- had to become lumbermen ! If they wanted a house to live in, they needed to cut down / chop down a few trees. Think of all the tools these settlers would have needed in order to get the wood into a shape which was needed to build a cabin. How many of you have ever cut down a tree? Or skinned the bark off of a tree? I have. In the 1950's, my father was fortunate enough to find a piece of land in MA but on the NH border which was available for sale at a reasonable price. It was all woods. In order to have a clearing to put tents on, or build a small shack, my siblings and I had to help cut down a few trees. We learned about "2-man saws." And then he had one sister and I build a very small A-frame house. With his help, we did it. Once built we could set up the cots and sleeping bags inside it. And, he found that land because it was a couple miles from a "State Park" which we visited all during the 1950's and 1960's. "Willard Brook State Forest" had 4, authentic Log Cabins in it, and people could rent them for a week or 2 - at a very reasonable price. As children, we loved those cabins. In the 1950's there were "no" utilities. So, we were "roughing it." And, how many of you had an ancestor who had a sawmill or worked at one? My Calvin KIDDER from southern NH went to New Brunswick ~1784. He was 18 or 19, and we don't know how he spent the next 15 years. But, when we first find him, he was a part-owner of the "Harmony Sawmill" on the shore of the (then) Schoodic River. I was told that, when you were a part-owner, that meant you owned which part of the day you were allowed to use the sawmill. For instance, maybe he was able to use it from 2 am to 4 am. He sold it around the time he got married to Mercy GREENLAW in the summer of 1798. Betty (near Lowell, MA, USA) List Administrator (We're still looking for the parents of Mercy GREENLAW. My new idea this summer is that she was related to the GREENLAW siblings who left Maine and went to St. Andrew's, NB, during the 1700's as Loyalists. And, adding to that idea, I'm now wondering if Calvin was on the mailboat with the other men - because he wanted to get to St. Andrew's to "announce the birth of his son." That boat (sailboat) overturned and all 5 men were killed. Calvin's first child was born one week before that. This "Melancholy Accident" was mentioned in the newspapers of the time (Feb. 1799).) 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