Susquehanna Boom

The Susquehanna Boom full of logs, 1898

The Susquehanna Boom was a system of cribs in the West Branch Susquehanna River designed to hold timber in the river until it could be processed at one of the nearly 60 sawmills along the river between Lycoming and Loyalsock Creeks in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The boom was constructed in 1846 under the supervision of James H. Perkins. A boom is a chain or line of connected floating timbers extended across a river, lake, or harbor (as to obstruct passage or catch floating objects). The Susquehanna Boom extended seven miles upstream from Duboistown to the village of Linden in Woodward Township where it was interrupted to create a channel across the river for the passage of a ferry . It was extended further westward to Jersey Shore. This extension was not always used, depending on the supply and demand for lumber. The boom was constructed by creating a series of man-made islands known as "cribs". These cribs built of local mountain stone and sunken timber were stretched diagonally across the river, beginning on the south side near Duboistown and ending on the north side near Linden. The boom was made of 352 seperate cribs that were 22 feet high. The boom was opened and closed at the upper end by a device known as a "sheer boom." It was 1,000 feet long and was controlled with a hand-powered windlass. The sheer boom gathered the logs into the main boom that was capable of holding up to 300 million board feet of logs. The lower end of the boom was where the logs were sorted. The mills in Williamsport, South Williamsport, and Duboistown each had their own distinctive brand burnt into the logs. The men working at the end of the boom would sort the logs according to their corresponding brand and float them into the correct holding pond along the bank of the river. During the height of the lumber industry in Lycoming County, 1861-1891, the various mills produced 5.5 billion board feet of lumber. Williamsport became one of the most prosperous cities in Pennsylvania and in the United States. Men like James H. Perkins, Peter Herdic, and Mahlon Fisher became millionaires while many of the men who actually worked in the river struggled to survive on the wages paid to them by the lumber barons.

Beginnings

The lumber industry in Lycoming County began soon after the first European settlers arrived prior to the American Revolution. Small scale sawmills along the West Branch Susquehanna River and its tributaries provided enough lumber to build the houses of Williamsport and the surrounding area. Even more timber was floated all the way down the Susquehanna River, into the Chesapeake Bay and onto Baltimore, where the massive and straight timbers were turned into masts for the famous Baltimore Clippers and other sailing vessels of the 18th century. The arrival of James H. Perkins a native of New Hampshire in December 1845 was the beginning of the economic boom that would make Williamsport into a booming lumber city. Perkins had been a successful owner of a calico prints factory in Philadelphia prior to selling out and moving to the West Branch Susquehanna River Valley. Perkins and his business partner, John Leighton of Maine, set out with the goal of creating a large scale lumbering and milling operation. Perkins believed that Williamsport could be a major center in the lumber business. It was surrounded by a plentiful supply of virgin forests of hemlock, white pine and various hardwoods. The West Branch Susquehanna River basin was drained by many fairly large creeks such as Pine Creek, Larrys Creek, Lycoming Creek and Loyalsock Creek. These streams and their tributarties reached far into the rolling hills of the Allegheny Plateau and provided easy access to the millions of trees that covered much of Pennsylvania in the 1800s. Perkins and Leighton saw that a stretch of the West Branch near the western edge of Williamsport was fairly slow moving, deep and calm. This stretch of river, known as "Long Reach", proved to be the ideal setting for the construction of the Susquehanna Boom.

The Susquehanna Boom Company was incorporated on March 26 1846 and formally organized on November 5 1849. The first shareholders were Perkins and Leighton, joined by John and Matthias DuBois founder of Duboistown and later Dubois, Pennsylvania, Issac Smith and Elias S. Lowe. The stockholders meeting held in 1849 saw the election of John Leighton to the chair and Elias S. Lowe was chosen as the secretary. Construction of the boom began in 1849 with the erection of two temporary booms. Periodic flooding along the West Branch slowed construction of the boom until it was ultimately completed in 1851. When filled to capacity the 450 acres of enclosed river could hold nearly one million logs.

Operation

Islands left from the boom cribs in the West Branch Susquehanna River are all that is left of the Susquehanna Boom today

The Susquehanna Boom was placed in an area of the river that had a large bend that drew the logs to the south side of the river. It worked as a type of corral, a corral for logs. Operating and managing the boom was a labor intensive endevour. 150 men and boys were needed to sort and seperate the millions of logs that floated into the Susquehanna Boom. Boys as young as 12 worked among the cribs. They had to identify one of over 1,700 marks found on the logs and send them along in a raft to the proper sawmill. Sorting these logs was the first job a boy could get on the Susquehanna Boom. The "Boom Rats" walked along long planks known as "stretchers" that connected the 352 cribs. They used long handled hooks to gather the logs to be tied into rafts. The was a job that required strength and agility and was the domain of young men.

The boom had to be lifted from the river at the outset of every winter before the river would freese. This job was carried out by a group of men that worked with a tugboat. The power of the tub lifted the boom out of the water for storing on the safety of the banks of the river. Then each spring before the run of the logs down the river the boom had to be put back into place.

The boom operated for eight months. The 150 employees were paid $1.50 per day for their work. The owners of the boom paid an average of $50,000 per year to their employees for an average of $333.33 per man. This low pay compared to the millions that the owners of the boom and some of the mills brought about some hard feelings among the workers of the Susquehanna Boom. The workers of the boom, the lumber jacks, and the sawmill workers banded together in 1872 went on strike that summer.

Sawdust War

The strike began on July 1 and culminated with the riot known as the "Sawdust War" broke out on July 20. Nearly 3,000 men felt like that had not received a fair share of the profits. Over 5 million dollars worth of lumber had been processed the previous summer. Men like Peter Herdic, James Perkins and Mahlon Fisher had become millionaires while they struggled to feed their families with the wages earned at the dangerous jobs. In addition to the desparity in income the workers were also being forced to work twleve hour days when the Pennsylvania General Assembly had recently passed a law requiring ten hour workdays. Despite the new law the state government had no way to enforce the new rules and the owners of the lumber mills and the boom chose to ignore the law. The leaders of the lumbermen decided that going on strike would be the only way to receive the hours and pay that they felt they deserved. Their motto was, "Ten hours or no sawdust."

On the morning of July 1, 1872 the leaders of strike assembled in fron of the Lycoming County Courhouse. They then marched to each sawmill and gathered the mill workers and/or shutdown the machinery of the mill. The strike on July 1st was relatively peaceful. The leaders of the strike became worried that the lumbermen would return to work without gaining the new working hours and higher pay that they sought. Many of the mill workers expressed worry that they would be unable to feed their families if they didn't earn their wages by working.

The Pennsylvania Militia was called in to protect the interests of the sawmill owners. 24 men were convicted by the local court for their roles in the riot. All of them were pardoned by Pennsylvania Governor John W. Geary as a politcal favor to Peter Herdic, the owner of the Susquehanna Boom.

End of the Boom

The Susquehanna Boom lost its profitability for three main reasons. First was the periodic floods that swept down the West Branch Valley following the winter snow melt and the spring rains. The West Branch Valley was devastated by a flood in 1894. The sawmills along the river were largely destroyed. The boom was washed away and close to two million of board feet of freshly cut timber were washed down the Susquehanna River. Second were the newly constructed railroads in North Central Pennsylvania. These railroads were able to transport the fresh timber more quickly and were less risky, expensive and dangerous than floating the logs down the West Branch Susquehanna River and it's tributaries. Thirdly, little thought for the future was placed when the massive stands of old growth forest were harvested during the 1800s. The mountains were clear cut. The tops of the trees were left to dry. The passing steam trains spread burning embers along the railroad tracks. These embers would spark devastating fires that prevented the forests from regrowing. Without trees the sawmills could no longer process timber, the mills closed and eventually the boom itself was forced to close in 1908.