Ohio History Journal

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DONALD A

DONALD A. HUTSLAR

 

 

Ohio Waterpowered Sawmills

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

The reduction of large timber into useful sizes for woodworking is an ancient

process beginning long before the written word. Metal tools were not necessary. Be-

fore the advent of metal axes in North America, the Indians were accustomed to

felling trees by alternately charring the trunk with fire and breaking away the

burned surface-presumably with large stone axes. Dugout canoes were also hol-

lowed out in this fashion.

Splitting is undoubtedly the oldest known means for reducing a tree trunk into

rough planks. This method does not require metal tools if the wood has cracks large

enough to start a wooden wedge. Traditionally wooden wedges and mauls have

been used in the United States to split fence rails. Some split timber is still being

used in the wooden ship building trade because splitting preserves the strongest

characteristics of wood: the split follows, whereas the saw often cuts through, the

natural grain structure. Split planks bend much better than sawed planks. With the

advent of iron tools, the timber was split roughly to size, then hewed to the desired

dimensions. This was a wasteful process, but has continued into the 20th century in

many parts of the world. For at least 2000 years moderate size tree trunks have been

hewed into posts and beams for braced-frame structures; the mortised and tenoned

barns, houses, and outbuildings of the United States owe their origin at least to the

Romans, if not to an older civilization.1

By beginning the discussion of saw milling with splitting and hewing, the implica-

tion is left that cutting wood with a saw is a latter-day invention. The fact is, the saw

was considered by the Greeks to be so ancient that its (supposed) inventor was

placed in their mythology. Beckmann found that classic literature ascribed the in-

vention to the minor gods Talus or Perdix.2 Talus used the jawbone of a snake to cut

through a small piece of wood, thereby giving him the idea to form a similar device

of iron. Perdix used the backbone of a fish for the same purpose. The ingenuity of

 

 

1. For further reading on this subject, see Cecil Alec Hewett, The Development of Carpentry (Newton

Abbott, Devon, 1969); Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, The Ten Books on Architecture (Morris Hicky Morgan,

trans., 1914 ed. New York, 1960), Book X, Chap. V, par. 1.

2. John Beckmann, "Saw-mills," in A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins (London, 1846), I,

222-224.

 

Mr. Hutslar is associate curator of history at The Ohio Historical Society. Unless otherwise designated,

all photographs are by the author.