I recently found an interesting article in a July 1896 issue of Cassier’s Magazine, a monthly engineering journal.
The author was Salem, Ohio, resident Joel Sharp, and relates the “accurate history of the development of sawmills in the United States.”
I’m not sure just which Joel Sharp wrote the article but I suspect he was a grandson of Thomas Sharp who was born in 1808.
History
First off, Sharp quotes a brief history of sawmills in this country as given by the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which speaks of several mills “along the Atlantic coast of North America about 1634, a description of one being that of all.
“In these mills the saw was attached by a long pitman from the water wheel shaft to a ponderous saw-gate, running in wooden slides upon two heavy posts, crossed above by a beam connecting the two sides of the mill-frame.
“The mill carriage, on which the log lay, was pushed toward the saw by a rack and pinion, moved by a feed wheel. The daily capacity of these mills was from 500 to 1500 superficial (square) feet.”
Sash mills
These up and down sawmills were of two types. A sash mill had one or more straight saw blades stretched under tension inside a rectangular frame (sash or gate) that was moved up and down by the pitman from the crank on the power source.
A sash saw with multiple saw blades could cut several boards from a log at the same time and was called a “gang saw.” A variation of the gang saw was called a “slabbing gang” and had just two blades with one movable to adjust the distance between the blades.
When run through the slabbing mill, a slab was removed from each side of the log leaving it flat on both sides. A log so flattened was called a “stock” and was then cut into boards or planks on a standard gang or circular mill.
Equally crude mills seem to have held sway until the 1830s, and Sharp’s ancestors had a lot to do with improvements made in those years.
He goes on, “If we give here, a brief record of the evolution of the saw-mill in northeastern Ohio, where grew the majestic poplar, oak and other timber, as it was pushed forward to its modern state of perfection by the Sharps, we will perhaps have ‘told the story,’ so to speak of the development of this industry.”
The early sash mills were slow — 60 to 100 strokes per minute — due to the heavy saw-gate, which was twice the width of a 4-foot-diameter log, and rarely exceeded 1,500 feet per 10 hour day.
Mulay mills
Sharp tells us that the fore-mentioned Thomas Sharp built the “first really successful mulay saw-mill in northeastern Ohio for Leonard Case Sr. and erected the mill “five miles west of Cleveland in 1833.”
The mill was powered by a belt from a 10-foot-by-36-inch steam engine of unknown manufacture that drove the saw at 300 strokes per minute and doubled the capacity to about 3,000 feet per 10 hour day.
The log was initially fed by an old style ratchet feed which was unsatisfactory at the higher speeds and Sharp developed a continuous feed that further increased capacity to more than 4,000 feet.
Thomas Sharp ran the Case mill until it was destroyed by fire in 1842 and then returned to Salem where he established a small machine shop and began to build similar belt driven mulay mills for the trade.
By the way, a mulay saw typically had a single vertical blade that was driven directly by the pitman between wooden guide blocks at the top and bottom and its blade was made of heavier steel than that of the sash saw.
The mulay saw required less power than the sash saw because the weight and friction of the heavy framework that held the saw was dispensed with.
Mill improvements
In 1845, Sharp did away with the belt drive — which caused some power loss — by attaching the engine and the saw crank to the same shaft.
These direct drive mulay mills “were a success from the start (and) fully equaled the belted mills in capacity (while) costing much less.”
After further improvements by his ancestor to the mills and the engines that drove them, Joel Sharp tells us that the original mill built for Case “required for fuel all the slabs (made by the mill) and a like amount of cord wood besides, while the direct-action mills became so perfected that the sawdust and chips furnished ample fuel (and) with reasonable skill, were good for from 7,000 to 8,000 feet per day.”
Ohio mills
The success of these mills suggested the direct action circular saw-mill and the Sharp, Davis & Bonsall Company (which later became the Buckeye Engine Company) build the first of this type circular saw-mill for a large Iowa land owner in 1856.
Joel Sharp wrote of this mill as follows: “We remember that the gentleman came to Salem with his money in a belt under his clothes (bank checks were not as common then as now), and staid with us until we built and shipped his mill.”
Sharp describes the Iowa mill thus: “The foundation for this engine was on oak timbers, about 10 feet by 20 inches, keyed at each end to solid oak stumps, about 2 feet in diameter and 15 feet apart.
“The mill was set properly on this and started without a shelter of any description. The engine was 6 inches by 14 inches and drove a 54-inch saw.
“The capacity was from 600 to 800 feet of oak boards per hour when properly handled. This was doubtless the first direct-action circular saw-mill in the United States, if not the world.”
Sharp talks more about the firm’s saw-mills and engines and then concludes by referring to the “modern large gang mills with edgers and steam feed, etc. in the Northwest where one mill turns out as high as 100,000 feet of lumber in a single day” and opines that no further advancements in mills were necessary, even if possible.
His final statement, written in 1896, is “Figuratively speaking, forests have already hoisted the white flag, and are crying ‘Hold! Enough!!'”
This article was somewhat helpful. I asked about the development of the Gang Saw, because I want to figure out what new lumbering technology was being used in Saganaw Michigan, in 1868, when my great, great grandfather, a lumberman with a sawmill in Vermont, sent his son (in his early 30’s) to Saganaw to learn if the new technology being used there, could be employed profitably in Vermont. This article was an improvement over another one that I got over the internet. That article was written by someone who apparently did not know what a gang saw is. This article reflects that its author knows what a gang saw is, but it does not give me any details about the timing of it coming into use and refers only to lumbermen in Ohio and Iowa.