File:Annual report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York (1899) (14732415666).jpg

Identifier: annualreportof6189919newy (find matches)
Title: Annual report of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission of the State of New York
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: New York (State). Forest, Fish and Game Commission
Subjects: Forests and forestry Fisheries Game and game-birds
Publisher: (Albany, N.Y. : The Commission)
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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t;planks, boards and boat-sides were mostly made by pit-sawing. The latter was acommon industry in the old country ; and one reason why England had no sawmillsuntil after 1768 was because the mobs, who always opposed labor-saving machinery,destroyed the first ones as fast as erected, through a fear that the pit-sawyers wouldbe thrown out of employment. Pif~3avtng. Pit-sawing was done by two men with a long saw which had a cross-handle ateach end. A large timber, hewed square, was placed over a pit or elevated ontrestles, with one man standing on top of it to pull the saw up, and one man belowto pull it down. The workman on top, who guided the saw along a chalk line andwas necessarily the better man, was called the top-sawyer, a name still used occa-sionally in the backwoods to indicate a tip-top man ; and the one below was calledthe pitman. When sawmills were first substituted in this work the saw was pulledup by a spring-pole overhead, and pulled down by a wooden beam attached to the
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FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 245 crank of the mill wheel. This wooden beam was called a pitman, and is known bythat name to-day in every sawmill throughout the country. Our amateur philolo-gists will not have much trouble in guessing the derivation of the word. But pit-sawing, or whip-sawing, as sometimes called, was not entirely aban-doned on the introduction of sawmills.* This old method was still useful in saw-ing long stuff, because in many mills the log carriage was not long enough to sawplanks of the desired length. The writer remembers seeing two men as late as i860pit-sawing at the Gang Mills, near Painted Post, Steuben County, N. Y. The large,square stick of timber, which rested on high trestles, was being sawed into longplanks for the sides of a canal boat. The man underneath — the human pitman —had a handkerchief tied over his head to keep the sawdust out of his eyes. Tl)e First lumber s3l)ipmenfs. The lumbermen of New Amsterdam colony were not confined to the home

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