EARLY LUMBER INTEREST IN GARRETT

The following is a taken from “Brown’s Miscellaneous Writings” which was published in 1896 by J. J. Miller. If anyone has any history relating to Allegany and Garrett County this is one of the book you should have on your shelve.

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A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE LUMBER INTEREST OF GARRETT COUNTY

The lumber business has been, and will continue to be a leading interest in Garrett County for years to come. Any information and reasoning on the subject ought to be interesting to practical readers. We shall endeavor in this informal paper to render something in the way of history of a business that interests so many people of this and other sections of the country.

What is now Garrett County, at the time of its earliest settlements or openings, was densely and heavily timbered with all species of woods, excepting the “Glades,” mostly in the southwest part of the county. Beyond sixty years ago timber was supposed to have little or no value, except for mere domestic use; one good pine tree would be worth more now then fifty acres of pine timberland then. Mr. Aaron Wilhelm is authority for the statement, that about the close of the war he made $250 worth of shingles out of one tree. He insists that the fact can be vouched. But there are no such trees now, at any rate in this part of the country. The pine timber in this region is, or was, found in the valleys and ridge, between the great Savage and Negro mountains. Nearly all white pine, only here and there on high planes a few trees of yellow species. Plenty of spruce and some hemlock. Hard wood, such as oak, sugar, hickory, ash and cherry are still abundant. It can be remarked here that white pine is indigenous to cold climates, whilst on the other had yellow pine in mostly to be found in warm climates.

The first saw mill in Garrett county was built and owned by Philip Hare about the year 1790, on Meadow Run, two miles below the Stone House on the National Road with the primitive flutter-wheel and other like appointments. Water-power, with up and down saw, cut the plank boards, as they were called; and hand and foot power did the balance of the labor, all heavy and hard. Hare run this mill himself till manhood gave out. He died in 1831, very aged, suddenly without ache or pain. The writer remembers to have seen a bolting-chest many years ago, in the Crossing mill, made out of planks sawed at the Hare mill three feet wide, without knot or blemish. It is believed in the actual occupancy of the original proprietor and his descendents over one hundred years, and is now owned and dwelt upon to two of his grandsons – Henry and William Newman – now approaching their three score and ten. Though both married, and with families, they have always lived in common. No two persons were ever nearer a unit then they. This old mill was in utter ruins more then sixty years ago. A little over fifty years since John Newman, the son-in-law of the old ancestor, built a mill about one mile above the old one of the same stream. It is now also in “desesitude”.

Respectfully submitted: L. L. “Buddy” Duckworth