An old saw story

[spike60]

I was up in Maine a couple of weeks ago, and I picked up an interesting book, "A Soldiers Son" by John Hodgkins. It is about a boy, (the author), in WWII and his life in Maine while his father is in Europe with the 8th armoured division.

In telling how he and his mother and 2 younger sisters got through the Maine winters without Dad, much of the talk is about firewood. Having enough wood for the winter was just as important as having enough food. It was hard work that a family had to spend quite a bit of time at.

Of course, there was no Husky vs. Stihl debate. (Not even a Homelite vs McCulloch debate!) It was an axe vs. handsaw debate. That's how they cut their wood. And since it had to be done by hand with those tools, most of the wood harvested was 4 to 6, maybe 8 inch diameter. (I would hate to use a handsaw or an axe on the 16" white oak I buzzed up with my Jonsered yesterday) It was first cut to 4 to 6 ft lengths so it could be moved. The wood supply then had to be cut up into two different lengths at home. Regular size for the wood furnace, and smaller stuff for the wood cook stove in the kitchen. About 4 to 5 cords were needed for the winter.

So, one clever guy came up with the most interesting "saw" I've ever heard of. He got an old 20's or 30's Plymouth sedan. Took off the body, and took out the back seat. Put a second engine where the back seat was which used a belt to power a big circular saw that was bolted the back of the car where the trunk used to be. So, this guy would drive this contraption around to peoples houses and cut their wood for them. He was quite a welcome site to the boy and his family. I wish the book had a picture of that thing!

Two other items to note: The price of firewood was regulated during the war to prevent gouging; $10 a cord!

The town had one snowplow that was often either broke or stuck and some roads might go a month or more without getting plowed.

I found this pretty interesting, so I thought I'd share it with you guys.

Any other old time wood/saw stories out there?

 

[Like The Woods!]

I have a neighbor pushing 90 years of age. When just a young'un he would cut pulp with a bucksaw. Bucked it to 4'. $4.00 a cord. 128 cu. ft. A real cord.

He lived on the coast and used to tell how during the depression - 30's - his family ate a lot of poached lobsters.

 

[Lakeside53]

Great story Spike!

 

[blis]

my dad has told me some stories about his childhood... for example, he used to cut birch with his dad with AXES for firewood and such and that aint even old thing, were talking bout 1960's... The life sure was tougher by then...

 

[mbopp]

Here's a few more, these are about the Adirondacks in NY:

"Man of the Woods" (Keith), about the early days of Wanakena and Tupper Lake.

"Sky Pilot" (Reverend Frank Reed), about preachers & lumber camps.

And a couple of books on Noah John Rondeau, Adirondack Hermit.

When dad (he's 75) was a kid he worked at his uncle's sawmill in Pa. He talks about 2-man chainsaws (Macs or Malls?) and the transition from horses to tractors for skidding logs. He says the tractors got stuck but the horses didn't. And on some chainsaws the carbs were on a swivel & you rotated them depending if you were bucking or felling. He's got a scar across his foot, says his axe bounced off a frozen log, sliced his boot and 2 pairs of socks but didn't go too deep in his foot.

 

[blis]

While my dad was still young they also used horses to move the logs, and after that came tractors and with them you could pull a whopping 3 small trees at time...

Oh, and about my axes, my dads uncle once hit himself with axe, lost the middle toe only!

 

[ehgauss]

Old axe story

My father told of getting firewood in Germany during the famine following WWI. His two older brothers, who had walked home from the western front after the armistice was signed, would go into the posted or otherwise forbidden forests near the Black Forest at night with axes to steal firewood, while he and his younger brother would act as lookouts. I remember him asking: "Do you know how far the sound of an ax carries in the woods at night?" The younger ones were scared to death, but the older ones, who had survived the trench warfare, feared nothing. They also poached fish from ponds on the lands of the soon to disappear nobility at night by dropping souvenier grenades into the water and scooping up the stunned fish. Gene Gauss