By Larry B. Schuknecht

In spite of the name of this page, it is not limited to Sawmills but also includes Steam Traction Engines, Tractors, Gas Engines and related wood harvesting machinery such as Shingle Mills. It is not a history of Sawmills but a collection of images from all over America of timber harvesting and related subjects.

In the early 1970’s I began running the Sawmill each year at the Alexander Steam Show, held in Alexander, N.Y by the Western New York Gas and Steam Engine Association. In the 1960’s and 1970’s there were two periodicals published about Gas and Steam Engines. They were the Gas Engine Magazine and the Iron Man Album. They were both edited and published by Elmer Ritzman who passed away in 1971. In 1972 or 73 a man approached me at the Alexander Steam Show and after I finished Sawing he asked if would like a collection of Sawmill images. He had bought a lot of them at Mr. Ritzman’s auction and did not want all of them. He gave me his address and I later went to his home in Caladonia and got the pictures. those images constitute a large part of this scrapbook. To my knowledge these images have never been published and are presented here for your enjoyment.

Along with them are pictures I took over the years and some sales information I acquired about Machinery by such makers as Westinghouse.

The first image is a post card from the Upper Canada Village Museum showing an Up and Down or “Muley” Sawmill which is the first type of successful Sawmill that was later replaced by the Circular Sawmill.

Next: we have a factory photograph from 1894 showing a Westinghouse circular Saw Mill set up in front of the factory warehouse, followed by a copy of another factory image of a portable Steam engine made by Westinghouse along with four pages from a Westinghouse catalog.

The following image is labeled “John B. Parrett, Long Lake, Wisconsin, 1916” and shows a typical Steam Traction Engine set up to power a saw mill.

The following image taken in 1907 shows Frank Schurman, age 18 who was the owner and operator of the 12 horse power 1890 Case Traction Engine.

Below: is another image of a typical Sawmill set up simply labeled- “Mr. Blumentritt, Sawyer”

Below: is a photo taken in 1900 of an old water powered Saw & Grist Mill at Pembroke, N.Y. near Main St. Route 5. This type of semi permanent sawmill structure could be found in almost every village in the mid 19th Century.

Below: is an image of a direct drive steam Sawmill built by Wm. Bartely & Son of Bartely, N.J. Circa 1900. Simply labeled- “Earl Shebel, Washington, NJ”. In this design the steam engine crank shaft and the saw arbor are one, and the carriage has a rack and pinion feed.

Next we have two images of a Lombard Steam log hauler built in Maine. Yes it was steered by a man sitting in front of it, out in the open with his back to the warm boiler. This was when Men did not shy away from hard, dangerous work.

Below: we have an image showing an old saw mill building which probably housed a water power up and down saw mill with a newer circular mill set up in front of it, of course it is powered by steam, labeled-“Clarence Mirk, Milwaukee, Wis.” The second image is a view of the newer circular mill from below near the old mill building.

Below: we have a slider of images of a sawmill set up at the Kennecott Mining Co. in Alaska, near the Kennicott Glacier. Circa-1900-1905, the sawmill in the pictures was powered by a single cylinder headless Witte engine of probably 10 to 12 horsepower. In the foreground of the first image and in the second is a planer powered by another headless Witte engine. The pictures show the mill being set up at two different locations which makes sense, rather than moving a lot of logs to the mill over some distance, move the sawmill to the woods. The mining Co. was started in 1901 and before anything else could be built, the sawmill was needed to supply the lumber and timbers needed to build the facilities.

This picture (below) of another rural mill set up is labeled-“1925, Portland, Mich., Allen Raser, 24 HP Advance Rumley”.

Below: a Century Steam Traction Engine

Below: three images of transitional tractors, first- a Bryan Light Steam Tractor patterned after the then more popular gas tractor “owned by Geo. P. Wacek of Olivia, Minn.”and second- two images of a 1918, 15-30 Townsend gas tractor patterned after the older Steam Traction engines. The last two are labeled- “E. Eliason, Kathryn, N. Dak. taken April 1955”.

Next we have a Mc Giffert steam log loader in action loading 32 foot Fir logs on rail cars. The inscription on the back of the photo follows.

Below: an image of an American no. 3 mill, labeled- “Frank Miller, Kewanna, Ind.

The following image of a rural steam powered sawmill is interesting that it shows a cabin/wagon.

Below: an image of Marcus Pease of Marathon, NY with his DeLeach mill.

Following are three images of R.D. Waggoner of Ottawa, Ill. with a Croft mill. He referred to his business as Native Lumber Mill.

The image that follows shows R. B. Cargill of West Union, Ohio sawing with steam power on April 24, 1954. As Garrison Keiler said- “A time when Women were strong and Men were good looking”.

Next we have an image from Wm. E. Campbell & Son of Caro, Mich. of their sawmill.

Following we have a slider with seven images of a portable sawmill set up somewhere in Pennsylvania in 1950. The whole outfit shows that the owner/operator was a truly ingenious fellow, with the home built Tractor/log hauler.

Next we have an image taken in 1954 from Frederic, Wi. followed with the explanation on the back of the photo.

I have no information about the 7 images in the slider that follows but they show a very experienced Sawyer breaking down a very large log which appears to be pine.

Below: we have an image of Frank York of 3 Rivers, Mich. in Aug. 1954 with his 20 H.P. Advance powering a sawmill. In May of 1955 he sold this engine to Ralph Woodmanse of Battle Creek, Mich.

Now we have an old image found years ago in the Buffalo Evening News showing a Band Saw Mill set up in an industrial plant- The old Lackawanna Steel Plant in Lackawanna, N.Y. which later became Bethlehem Steel.

Now we enter a new phase of Sawmill use. In the early 1950’s the use of the rural smaller Saw Mills began to wane as the demand for rough sawn lumber diminished and at the same time the Steam Reunions were beginning to start across America where people would congregate to show their old machinery and look back at the time when they were in use every day. Following are scenes from some of those early Steam Shows and Reunions.

Following we have a Sawing demonstration at Gilmar Johnson’s reunion at Fredric, Wis. in 1953.

Next we have an unknown sawing demonstration in the 1960’s using a Sawyer-Massey Steamer for power.

Below: Father Lime’s Sawmill, Pontiac, Ill. 1951.

The first Steam show of the Western New York Gas & Steam Engine Association took place in 1967 and the following six images are from that show, the seventh image shows the early American friction drive, rack & pinion feed sawmill, the second mill that the W. N. Y. G. & S. E. A. had.

Below: a friction feed saw mill at the Fairville, NY steam show in the 1970’s.

Below: a 1876 Rickert Bolt Mill at the Canandaigua, N.Y. Steam show in the early 1970’s.

Following are two images of an Appleton Drag Saw at the Alexander Steam show in 1975

Below: a Sawmill built by the American Sawmill Mach. Co. of Hacketstown, NJ, at either Canandaigua, NY. or Meadville, PA. in the early 1970’s.

Below: a Belsaw Sawmill at the Meadville, Pa. show in the early 1970’s.

Next we have a Economy portable Drag Saw outfit at Canandaigua, NY in the early 1970’s

Following is a portable Saw Mill at Meadville, PA. in the early 1970’s.

In the early 1970’s I purchased and restored a Trevor Shingle Mill made in Lockport, N.Y. and soon afterward sold it. Following are images of that Shingle Mill at the time of it’s sale.

Below: a Trevor Shingle Mill at the Upper Canada Museum which was powered by a two horse tread mill and a Drag Saw that was powered by a horse sweep.

In the early 1970’s Wes Hammond owned and showed at Alexander a rare Shingle Mill made by Henry W. & George O. Angell of Taberg, N.Y. Following are two views of that Shingle Mill.

Below: an Ireland Shingle Mill made by the Greene Iron Works in operation.

Following is a view of my Ireland Shingle Mill in the 1970’s.

Below: a nicely restored Ireland Drag Saw set up in Central Pa. in the early 1970’s.

Following are two views of a rare Shingle Mill built by Acer Dougherty & Co. of Rochester, N.Y and built on dougherty & Lawler’s Patent of March 10, 1863 and purchased by Ken Goodman in Cuba, NY in June of1977.

Below: we have two images of a 1903 Chase Shingle Mill that was owned by Frank Pflegle.

Following are two more images of a Chase Shingle Mill that was owned by R. O. Cashion of Nashville, Tn.

The next picture shows a cast iron husk for a A.C. Powell Son & Co. Sawmill that appears to be very similar to the Westinghouse and was found in a junk yard in Alexander, N.Y.

My Great Grandfather- Fredrick John Schuknecht (seated on the left in the following image with his daughter-Ruth Bennett and his grand daughter Barbara) of Hume, NY bought an old Sawmill in 1918 when he was contracted by the Houghton College to build a Girl’s Dormitory with lumber harvested and sawn from the College wood lot. He and Ruth’s husband -Victor Bennett always were involved with Sawmills after that. The following slider with a series of images shows Victor and his American Log Beam mill.

In 1968 while small game hunting on my uncles Victor’s farm I came across the old Iron and steel parts for my great grandfather’s sawmill. Upon asking Victor about it, he said I was welcome to it. I hauled the parts home and began refurbishing them. When another sawmill, an A. B. Farquhar with a better three block carriage came available for $100. I bought it and married the two together to make one functioning mill. Following is a slider of images of that mill’s initial set up.

Following is a picture of me running the American friction feed Sawmill at the Alexander Steam show in 1974 at he old Fireman’s grounds.

Below is a picture of me operating the sawmill at the Alexander Steam Show after they moved to the new grounds.(1976 or 1977) Behind me on the right is my uncle-Victor Bennett, with Paul Colvin looking on. In the foreground my good friend Jim Bohm is off-bearer.

In 1984 I lost my job as a Journeyman Machinist and had enough of bosses and immediately applied for a New York State Sales tax number and a DBA. My good friend Jim Bohm suggested we build up the old mill as a portable unit. We began collecting materials to do that and I purchased a International 560 tractor with a loader to power and move it. Following is a slider with two images of the unit when we were done building it, followed by images of a building I put up in 1990 to house it, at that time I acquired a 1926 Climax 4 cylinder gas engine from a Keystone Skimmer to power it. The young man in the images is my son Adam.

Following is a picture of the mill set up on a customer’s property before I installed it in the building.

Under Construction- to be continued.