After the end of the Civil War, the
United States went on a growth and building spree that demanded huge
amounts of lumber. In the west, this lumber came from the upper
northwest corner of the country, from Oregon and Washington. In the
east, it was shipped down the Connecticut River from Maine and the
Connecticut Lakes region, in huge shipments of logs managed by log
drivers, who “rode the logs” down the river, risking life and
limb to make sure the logs kept moving, breaking up any log jams that
occurred along the way. David Sumner, the river’s first log baron,
had made a fortune moving logs downriver. He died in 1867, and his
enterprises were small compared to the huge companies that dominated
the lumber trade during the Gilded Age.
In David Sumner’s time, logs were
floated all the way down the Connecticut River from the headwaters
near the Canadian border to the mouth of the river into the Atlantic
in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. By the late 1800’s, people in
Springfield, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut had more leisure
time and more money. They enjoyed using the river for recreational
boating, forcing lumber companies to process their logs further
upriver. As a result, several lumber companies combined resources and
started lumber mills in Holyoke and at Mount Tom in Northampton. In a
logical sequence of events, these companies merged and became the
Connecticut River Lumber Company in 1879.
The Connecticut River Lumber Company
was the biggest lumber company that had been seen on the river. David
Sumner’s goal in business was to support his family, and he managed
to do that in very well, even building a mansion that stands to this
day. Sumner’s fortune and his “mansion” were small potatoes
compared to the fortunes that the CRL Co amassed in the late 1800’s.
Business owners in the Guilded Age weren’t called “robber barons”
for nothing. They let nothing stand in their way, and George Scott
and Thomas Pearsall of CRL were no exception.
CRL was not, however, the only company
driving logs on the river. The Turners Falls Lumber Company and the
McIndoe Falls Lumber Company also floated their stock down the
Connecticut. The season was too short for log drivers and their
bosses to sit around and wait for other log companies to clear the
water. When CRL tried to drive out their competition, they found the
owner of the McIndoes Falls Company to be extremely stubborn and
difficult. In a prime example of cutthroat competition, the story is
that George Scott told one of his managers to “go back up there and
kill him off”. Apparently the McIndoe Falls guy was too tough even
to kill, so the next best thing was to hire him. In 1884, CRL’s
general manager retired due to failing eyesight, and the company
hired George Van Dyke to replace him.
George Van Dyke was born in 1846, in a
log cabin in Quebec. He was the fifth of eight children. His family
was poor, and he started working in a lumber camp in Maine at age 14
and by age 19 was managing a crew on the river. Although he did not
have much formal education, George had a sharp business mind, a
strong will, and a drive to make money fueled by his impoverished
childhood. These attributes, with practical experience working with
lumber and the powerful physical strength acquired through years of
arduous labor, combined to produce the most powerful and aggressive
timber baron in New England history.
By 1870, George was working for
himself, and bought several sawmills along the Connecticut River.
Through business deals and hard work, and probably some
underhandedness as well, he began amassing a fortune. Bill Gove, in
his book “Log Drives on the Connecticut River” describes one of
George’s first business deals. “In 1879, Van Dyke found himself
unexpectedly in temporary possession of another sawmill on the
river. He made a $100 purchase of a timber lot in Hereford, Quebec
and parlayed that into a cut of about a million feet of logs.
(Translation: The adjoining landowners probably had some of their
logs removed also.)” One gets the impression that this was typical
of George Van Dyke, ruthless and not above a little extra-legal
maneuvering, especially if he could get away with it.
It seems that things always worked
that way for George Van Dyke during that decade. He took that million
feet of logs and drove them to a sawmill in South Lancaster, New
Hampshire, just as the mill went bankrupt and none of the sawmill
crew would work. As the bank took ownership of the mill, George
commandeered his own crew of drivers to operate the sawmill and cut
up his logs. All this just when lumber prices had skyrocketed,
leaving George with a profit of $10,000 when everything was said and
done.
In 1877, he and his partner Henry
Merrill took over the sawmill at McIndoe Falls when that mill’s
former owners went bankrupt. It wasn’t long before George bought
out Henry’s part of the business and became sole owner. A few years
after becoming general manager of the Connecticut River Lumber
Company, he bought a part ownership of the company and became company
president. In 1897, George paid George Scott and Pearsall $1.5
milllion dollars and became sole owner of the company.
As the years went by, George
recognized that it would be easier to cart supplies and equipment up
and down the river by railroad rather than by water. Established
railroad lines did not want to expand to the North Country, fearing
there wouldn’t be enough business. Undaunted, George built the
Upper Coos Railroad and the Upper Coos and Hereford Railroad, which
extended all the way to Sherbrooke, Quebec. Although he still shipped
his logs down the Connecticut River, he did build some railroad spurs
east and west of the river, to access even more timber.
