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55-631: A joint venture of industrialists Alexander Gibson and Jabez B. Snowball , construction started in 1884 and finished in 1887. The opening of the Fredericton Railway Bridge in 1889 gave it a direct connection to the provincial capital. In 1890 the Northern and Western was reorganized and became the Canada Eastern Railway Company, of which Gibson became the sole owner in 1893. The line was rerouted between Renous and Nelson to

110-506: A cotton mill . He founded the company town of Marysville, New Brunswick . Alexander Gibson was born in St. Andrews, New Brunswick on 1 August 1818. He was the first of seven children born to John Gibson and his wife Mary Jane Johnson, who had immigrated to Canada from Ireland in 1818, accompanied by John Gibson's parents, Alexander Gibson Sr. and Janet Moore, brothers James and Stuart, and sister Margaret. During Alexander Gibson's childhood in

165-528: A gristmill , a store, a blacksmith shop, and "a number of houses well suited for workmen", as well as a farm and 7,000 acres of woodland. The purchase price also included the right to float logs and rafts down the Nashwaak River to its mouth in the Saint John River across from the city of Fredericton. Gibson immediately began to improve and expand the operation. He enlarged the mill pond by putting

220-507: A chain of piers across the river above an existing dam , and built more dams in order to improve the flow of logs to his sawmills. He also renovated the mills, outfitting them with double gang saws, and brought in experienced workers from Lepreau to run them. In the spring of 1863 the mills began sawing 3 inch planks , called deals, which were floated to a log boom at the mouth of the Nashwaak. They were then taken on lighters or rafts down

275-600: A heating plant at CFB Gagetown . The only original trackage of the Canada Eastern that remains in service is operated by the New Brunswick East Coast Railway between Nelson and Chatham. Alexander Gibson (industrialist) Alexander "Boss" Gibson (1 August 1818 – 14 August 1913) was a Canadian industrialist in New Brunswick , Canada. His business interests included sawmills , railways , and

330-602: A library room containing 300 books. The top floor of Gibson's large new store was used as a Methodist meeting-house until he funded the construction of a magnificent Methodist church. The Marysville Methodist Church, which cost Gibson over $ 65,000, was dedicated on 5 January 1873. Built of wood in Gothic Revival style, it was octagonal in shape with a 156-foot spire. It was framed with imported southern pine with walnut, mahogany and ash interior fittings, and had elaborate stained glass windows imported from England. Gibson paid

385-548: A position he held until 1908. The building of the cotton mill and worker's houses in the 1880s transformed the community, which was designated the Marysville Historic District National Historic Site of Canada in 1993. It was described as "among the earliest and most complete Canadian examples of an integrated industrial/ residential community", while the "high quality, brick construction of both tenements and mill reflect Gibson's optimism for

440-608: A sawmill and water rights on the Lepreau River in Charlotte County, New Brunswick . In 1862 Gibson left Charlotte County and purchased land and a sawmill operation on the Nashwaak River near Fredericton . A company directed by Robert Rankin owned the operation, which was failing because of poor management and had been offered for sale for several years before Gibson purchased it for £7,300. The property included sawmills,

495-415: A term used in many mechanical applications). Generally, only the saw was powered, and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand. An early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to move the log steadily through the saw blade. A type of sawmill without a crank is known from Germany called "knock and drop" or simply "drop" -mills. In these drop sawmills, the frame carrying

550-563: A total of 1,647,772 acres of forested land. The charter stipulated that construction must start in three years, with completion in eight years. After two years of unsuccessful efforts by the company to raise money in England to finance construction, Gibson offered to pay one quarter of the cost. Gibson took over as president of the company and with the granting of another $ 225,000 by city and county governments, construction began in May 1872. The railway, which

605-406: Is a facility where logs are cut into lumber . Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ( dimensional lumber ). The "portable" sawmill is simple to operate. The log lies flat on a steel bed, and the motorized saw cuts the log horizontally along the length of the bed, by the operator manually pushing

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660-590: Is much like those of hundreds of years ago: a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end. The Hierapolis sawmill , a water-powered stone sawmill at Hierapolis , Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey , then part of the Roman Empire ), dating to the second half of the 3rd century, is the earliest known sawmill. It also incorporates a crank and connecting rod mechanism. Water-powered stone sawmills working with cranks and connecting rods, but without gear train , are archaeologically attested for

715-581: Is the Hierapolis sawmill , a Roman water-powered stone mill at Hierapolis , Asia Minor dating back to the 3rd century AD. Other water-powered mills followed and by the 11th century they were widespread in Spain and North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, and in the next few centuries, spread across Europe. The circular motion of the wheel was converted to a reciprocating motion at the saw blade. Generally, only

770-526: Is the small portable sawmill for personal or even professional use. Many different models have emerged with different designs and functions. They are especially suitable for producing limited volumes of boards, or specialty milling such as oversized timber. Portable sawmills have gained popularity for the convenience of bringing the sawmill to the logs and milling lumber in remote locations. Some remote communities that have experienced natural disasters have used portable sawmills to rebuild their communities out of

825-507: The Christian saint Gregory of Nyssa from Anatolia around 370–390 AD, demonstrating a diversified use of water-power in many parts of the Roman Empire . Sawmills later became widespread in medieval Europe , as one was sketched by Villard de Honnecourt in c. 1225–1235. They are claimed to have been introduced to Madeira following its discovery in c. 1420 and spread widely in Europe in

880-768: The New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company . In 1864 the New Brunswick government passed the Railway Facility Act, which encouraged the building of railways by giving companies a subsidy of $ 10,000 per mile. The first railway company in the Fredericton area was the Fredericton Railway Company, of which Gibson was a director. It was incorporated in 1866 to build a line from Fredericton to the community of Hartt's Mills . When it opened in November 1867 it joined

935-687: The Pee Dee River from as far as the edge of the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina . A restoration project for Sturgeon's Mill in Northern California is underway, restoring one of the last steam-powered lumber mills still using its original equipment. In the twentieth century the introduction of electricity and high technology furthered this process, and now most sawmills are massive and expensive facilities in which most aspects of

990-636: The sawfiler . Sawfilers were highly skilled in metalworking. Their main job was to set and sharpen teeth. The craft also involved learning how to hammer a saw, whereby a saw is deformed with a hammer and anvil to counteract the forces of heat and cutting. Modern circular saw blades have replaceable teeth, but still need to be hammered. The introduction of steam power in the 19th century created many new possibilities for mills. Availability of railroad transportation for logs and lumber encouraged building of rail mills away from navigable water. Steam powered sawmills could be far more mechanized. Scrap lumber from

1045-399: The 16th century. Prior to the invention of the sawmill, boards were rived (split) and planed, or more often sawn by two men with a whipsaw , using saddleblocks to hold the log, and a saw pit for the pitman who worked below. Sawing was slow, and required strong and hearty men. The topsawer had to be the stronger of the two because the saw was pulled in turn by each man, and the lower had

1100-610: The 1820s the family lived in a log house and farmed six acres of land. The grandparents seem both to have been born in Scotland, but all of the children were of Irish birth. Unlike the waves of poor Irish who were beginning to land in the Maritimes (St. Andrews alone landed several thousands between 1817 and 1818), Gibson's grandfather seems not to have been poor, as he speculated modestly in land in St. Andrews until about 1825, when he applied for and

1155-407: The 20th century the introduction of electricity and high technology furthered this process, and now most sawmills are massive and expensive facilities in which most aspects of the work are computerized. Besides the sawn timber, use is made of all the by-products including sawdust , bark , woodchips , and wood pellets , creating a diverse offering of forest products . A sawmill's basic operation

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1210-627: The 6th century at the Byzantine cities Gerasa (in Asia Minor) and Ephesus (in Syria ). The earliest literary reference to a working sawmill comes from a Roman poet, Ausonius , who wrote a topographical poem about the river Moselle in Germany in the late 4th century AD. At one point in the poem, he describes the shrieking sound of a watermill cutting marble . Marble sawmills also seem to be indicated by

1265-610: The Alexander Gibson Railroad and Manufacturing Company in 1900. Finally, he was unable to extricate himself from his financial difficulties. The cotton mill property was taken over by the Canadian Colored Cotton Mills Company in 1907, while his remaining business assets were transferred to his creditors in 1908. He received an annual pension of $ 5,000 and the right to live in his house in Marysville for

1320-642: The Saint John River to the port of Saint John, New Brunswick , and thence to the British or American markets. Eventually Gibson also shipped wood to South America, Australia, and the West Indies . At times his wood production accounted for more than half of the goods exported annually from the port of Saint John. In his first 10 years of operation on the Nashwaak, Gibson was granted 30,000 acres of forested Crown Land , and bought another 93,000 acres of forest from

1375-593: The Western Extension of the European and North American Railway which ran from Maine to Saint John, New Brunswick . Gibson's second railway venture was as a director, and later president, of the New Brunswick Land and Railway Company , which received a provincial government charter in 1870 to build a line north to Edmundston . The province granted the company 10,000 acres of crown land per mile of track, for

1430-433: The advantage of gravity. The topsawyer also had to guide the saw so that the board was of even thickness. This was often done by following a chalkline. Early sawmills simply adapted the whipsaw to mechanical power, generally driven by a water wheel to speed up the process. The circular motion of the wheel was changed to back-and-forth motion of the saw blade by a connecting rod known as a pitman arm (thus introducing

1485-530: The availability of ships transporting cargoes of logs to the sawmill and cargoes of lumber from the sawmill. The next improvement was the use of circular saw blades, perhaps invented in England in the late 18th century, but perhaps in 17th-century Netherlands. Soon thereafter, millers used gangsaws, which added additional blades so that a log would be reduced to boards in one quick step. Circular saw blades were extremely expensive and highly subject to damage by overheating or dirty logs. A new kind of technician arose,

1540-426: The community". The cotton mill building received a separate National Historic Site designation in 1986. The Canadian cotton textile industry, including Gibson's enterprise, soon ran into difficulties. These included a shortage of skilled workers, competition for raw materials, and dependence on imported technology. Most serious was the fact that the market could not support the amount of cotton cloth produced by all

1595-481: The economy of the Maritimes at a time of transformation and integration within the national economy" and that he "left an important legacy of railway and industrial infrastructure in his province". His Family Plot in the Alexander Gibson Memorial Cemetery, 351 Canada Street, Fredericton was declared an Historic Place in 2010. Sawmill A sawmill ( saw mill , saw-mill ) or lumber mill

1650-495: The fallen trees. Technology has changed sawmill operations significantly in recent years, emphasizing increasing profits through waste minimization and increased energy efficiency as well as improving operator safety. The once-ubiquitous rusty, steel conical sawdust burners have for the most part vanished, as the sawdust and other mill waste is now processed into particleboard and related products, or used to heat wood-drying kilns . Co-generation facilities will produce power for

1705-411: The forest, where a temporary shelter was built, and the logs were skidded to the nearby mill by horse or ox teams, often when there was some snow to provide lubrication. As mills grew larger, they were usually established in more permanent facilities on a river, and the logs were floated down to them by log drivers . Sawmills built on navigable rivers, lakes, or estuaries were called cargo mills because of

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1760-489: The forest.". Alexander Gibson and his wife were to have twelve children, of whom six lived to adulthood. Alexander Gibson went to work in the sawmills in Milltown, New Brunswick , first as a laborer , then as sawyer and later mill manager. He became an expert at managing water-powered mills using the innovative gang saws which were first used in the area in the 1840s. In the 1850s, with an American partner, Gibson leased

1815-441: The growth of a frontier community. The Dutch windmill owner Cornelis Corneliszoon van Uitgeest invented in 1594 the wind-powered sawmill, which made the conversion of log timber into planks 30 times faster than before. His wind-powered sawmill used a crankshaft to convert a windmill 's circular motion into a back-and-forward motion powering the saw, and was granted a patent for the technique. Early mills had been taken to

1870-456: The largest in Canada. The mill, which was designed by Lockwood, Greene & Co. of Providence, Rhode Island , had four storeys and was 418 feet long by 100 feet wide. It had steam heat and a sprinkler system as fire protection. Its 800 carbon arc electric lights were the first in the Fredericton area. Most of the building materials came from Gibson's own land. The bricks were manufactured on

1925-448: The latter part of the 20th century, the former Canada Eastern line became unprofitable for CNR. It was abandoned between McGivney and Derby in 1985 as well as east of Chatham to Loggieville. The section south of McGivney to Fredericton was officially abandoned in 1995, although the last train over this portion of the line (CN's Nashwaak Subdivision) operated in March 1996 with a coal shipment to

1980-536: The mill provided a ready fuel source for firing the boiler. Efficiency was increased, but the capital cost of a new mill increased dramatically as well. In addition, the use of steam or gasoline-powered traction engines also allowed the entire sawmill to be mobile. By 1900, the largest sawmill in the world was operated by the Atlantic Lumber Company in Georgetown , South Carolina, using logs floated down

2035-609: The mills. Gibson refused to join a trade association organized as early as 1886 to try to prevent overproduction, but in 1892 he agreed to market all his production through the Canadian Colored Cotton Mills Company Limited of Montreal. Through the 1890s, also, his lumber export business became less profitable, due to the increasing age of his mills and the declining supply of suitable lumber on his land. He reorganized and recapitalized his businesses, first as Alexander Gibson & Sons in 1897, and then as

2090-555: The minister's and organist's salaries and gave each choir member an annual stipend. The New Brunswick Legislature passed an act incorporating the Town of Marysville in April 1886. As well as naming the town after his wife and daughter, Gibson chose the pine tree as the image to appear on the town's crest. In the town's first election in January 1887, his son Alexander Gibson Jr. was elected mayor,

2145-662: The north bank of the Southwest Miramichi River through to Derby where it joined the Intercolonial Railway mainline at a junction between the bridges over the Southwest and Northwest Miramichi Rivers . In 1904 the Canada Eastern was purchased by the Intercolonial Railway , a federal Crown corporation . The mainline of the National Transcontinental Railway (NTR), another government concern,

2200-478: The operation and may also feed superfluous energy onto the grid. While the bark may be ground for landscaping barkdust , it may also be burned for heat. Sawdust may make particle board or be pressed into wood pellets for pellet stoves. The larger pieces of wood that will not make lumber are chipped into wood chips and provide a source of supply for paper mills. Wood by-products of the mills will also make oriented strand board (OSB) paneling for building construction,

2255-469: The rest of his life. Alexander Gibson died at his home in Marysville on 14 August 1913, at the age of ninety four. His wife had predeceased him in 1898. Alexander Gibson was remembered as a generous philanthropist as well as a "hard-driving entrepreneur". He was recognized as a Person of National Historic Significance by the Canadian government in 2007. The citation noted that he was "a pivotal figure in

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2310-600: The saw blade is knocked upwards by cams as the shaft turns. These cams are let into the shaft on which the waterwheel sits. When the frame carrying the saw blade is in the topmost position it drops by its own weight, making a loud knocking noise, and in so doing it cuts the trunk. A small mill such as this would be the center of many rural communities in wood-exporting regions such as the Baltic countries and Canada . The output of such mills would be quite low, perhaps only 500 boards per day. They would also generally only operate during

2365-472: The saw was powered, and the logs had to be loaded and moved by hand. An early improvement was the development of a movable carriage, also water powered, to move the log steadily through the saw blade. By the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the circular saw blade had been invented, and with the development of steam power in the 19th century, a much greater degree of mechanisation

2420-402: The saw. The most basic kind of sawmill consists of a chainsaw and a customized jig ("Alaskan sawmill"), with similar horizontal operation. Before the invention of the sawmill, boards were made in various manual ways, either rived (split) and planed , hewn , or more often hand sawn by two men with a whipsaw , one above and another in a saw pit below. The earliest known mechanical mill

2475-399: The site cleaned up and then built a new model village to accommodate the mill workers and their families, calling it Marysville after his wife and his eldest daughter, both of whom were named Mary. He had 24 duplex houses built on the opposite side of the river from the mill, with a foot bridge crossing the river. Gibson paid for the building of a school, which opened in 1864 and included

2530-540: The site, from clay dug on Gibson's property. Brick was used to construct rows of duplex houses for the mill workers, as well as a brick hotel to house unmarried female employees. Raw cotton from the United States started arriving at Marysville in 1885 and the mill was in full production by the end of 1889, employing 500 people by 1893. When Gibson arrived at his newly purchased property on the Nashwaak in 1862 he found poor sanitation and endemic typhoid fever . Gibson had

2585-581: The winter, the peak logging season. In the United States , the sawmill was introduced soon after the colonisation of Virginia by recruiting skilled men from Hamburg . Later the metal parts were obtained from the Netherlands, where the technology was far ahead of that in England , where the sawmill remained largely unknown until the late 18th century. The arrival of a sawmill was a large and stimulative step in

2640-440: The work is computerized . The cost of a new facility with 4,700-cubic-metre-per-day (2-million- board-foot -per- day ) capacity is up to CAN$ 120,000,000. A modern operation will produce between 240,000 to 1,650,000 cubic metres (100 to 700 million board feet) annually. Small gasoline-powered sawmills run by local entrepreneurs served many communities in the early twentieth century, and specialty markets still today. A trend

2695-604: Was built in 1912, creating a major junction at McGivney . The Intercolonial, NTR, and others were merged into the Canadian Government Railways in 1915 and the Canadian National Railways (CNR) in 1919. Canada Eastern and later the Intercolonial and CNR passenger trains along the line were given the nickname " Dungarvon Whooper " in reference to a local ghost story. With declining rail usage through

2750-476: Was called the "Gibson Line" reached Edmundson in 1878. Its southern terminus was at the village of Gibson (named after Alexander Gibson) on the north bank of the Saint John River near the mouth of the Nashwaak. In 1880 the company was sold and Alexander Gibson received $ 800,000 for his shares. Gibson's involvement in a third railway company took place when he opened the Marysville Cotton Mill , which

2805-464: Was completed in the summer of 1884, while the remainder was finished by September 1886. In 1893 Gibson bought out his partner Jabez Bunting Snowball and became sole owner of the company, which had become the Canada Eastern Railway in 1890. In 1904 he sold the railway to the federal government for $ 800,000. Gibson was president of the Fredericton and St. Mary's Railway Bridge Company, which

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2860-833: Was granted a 60-acre tract of farmland in Oak Bay, near St. Stephen, selling two 20-acre lots and reserving the easternmost portion for his own family. John Gibson, the Boss's father, is given as "shoemaker" on his son's baptismal record, but became a farmer upon the move to Oak Bay. Gibson married Mary Ann Robinson on 31 December 1843. She had been born in County Donegal , Ireland in 1827, two years before her parents emigrated to Canada and settled in Baillie Settlement, one of many tiny farming communities surrounding St. Stephen and Milltown, little more that what one commentator described as "windows in

2915-543: Was incorporated by federal government in 1885 to build the bridge across the Saint John River between Fredericton and Gibson. The Fredericton Railway Bridge was completed in June 1888. In 1883 Gibson embarked on a new venture, the manufacture of cotton textiles. The protectionist National Policy of 1879 encouraged the building of cotton mills in Canada, particularly in the Atlantic Provinces, and Gibson soon had one of

2970-520: Was not yet served by a railway line. In 1882 he became president of the Northern and Western Railway Company , which had been incorporated to build a railway from Fredericton to the towns of Newcastle and Chatham on the Miramichi River in northeastern New Brunswick. The federal and provincial governments pledged subsidies of $ 3,000 and $ 3,200 per mile, respectively. A line between Gibson and Marysville

3025-548: Was possible. Scrap lumber from the mill provided a source of fuel for firing the boiler. The arrival of railroads meant that logs could be transported to mills rather than mills being built beside navigable waterways. By 1900, the largest sawmill in the world was operated by the Atlantic Coast Lumber Company in Georgetown, South Carolina, using logs floated down the Pee Dee River from the Appalachian Mountains . In

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