The Lumberman's Frontier: Three Centuries of Land Use, Society, and Change in America's Forests

Preface

x Preface This is not the book I set out to write. Several years ago Ray Billington approached me about preparing a short volume on the lumberman’s frontier for the American Frontiers series of which he was then the general editor. Knowing a good bit had already been done, having completed considerable research in the field myself, and thinking I could quickly synthesize the literature and fill the gaps therein with additional research, I agreed. But the gaps were far larger than I dreamed, and new works kept appearing to reshapeourunderstandingofenvironmentalandAmericansocio-economic history, forcing me to rethink much of what I had to say. This study is thus the product of over forty years of probing and questioning—and, I trust, more valuable than the modest volume I originally envisioned. A word or two about my approach is in order. Both in portions that rest on the work of others and those that primarily depend upon my own archival research, I try to keep the principals at center stage and let them speak for themselves, for I believe personal values and perceptions drive events. To be sure, individuals are partially shaped—and certainly limited— by the zeitgeist of time, place, and class, but participants on the lumberman’s frontier differed so much in outlook and actions that we generalize at our peril.Thisis,inshort,notastudyofthepoliticaleconomy,butofindividuals, their varied accomplishments, and the results thereof. Nor is this a study of the use of forests throughout American history. I define the lumberman’s frontier more narrowly, arguing it existed only at times and places where trees drew settlement into an area. Felling trees to clear land for farming—even when one might sell the products of such labor—is, I contend, a part of the agricultural, not the lumbering, frontier. And when the process of drawing settlers to new areas is over, I conceive of the lumberman’s frontier itself as having ended even though timber harvests and other forms of forest utilization might still be going on. Except for a brief epilogue, both modern industrial lumbering with its emphasis on permanent operations and post-industrial forms of forest use are beyond the scope of this study. Needless to say, during the years I worked on this project I received help and encouragement from too many individuals for me to mention most, let alone all, of them here. Nonetheless, some played roles so central I must acknowledge them. Ronald J. Fahl and Harold K. Steen, then with the Forest History Society, lent support, encouragement, and ideas as I set Preface xi to work; Judith Austin, of the Idaho State Historical Society, introduced me to material on the Mountain states about which I then knew little; Richard Judd of the University of Maine provided hospitality and help as I wrestled with the colonial and early national periods; Raymond Starr of San Diego State University reviewed chapters on the colonial period and the South and helped me from going astray therein; and Gene Stuffle and Sarah Hinman of Idaho State University provided computer and cartographic expertise which my generation of graduate students never had to acquire. The staffs of various libraries and archives were helpful, but those of the Forest History Society in Durham, North Carolina, the Hill Memorial Library at Louisiana State University, and the Warren County Historical Society and Clearfield County Historical Society both in Pennsylvania went the extra mile. To all these—and to many others—I will be forever grateful. Special thanks are also due to the Laird-Norton Foundation, the San Diego State University Foundation, the Forest History Society, and the Henry E. Huntington Library for research grants that helped to make this study possible. Above all, I owe special thanks to my wife Mary, who suffered through a project that she must surely have thought would never end but who hung with me nonetheless. In the end, I alone am responsible for what follows. The interpretations are mine, as are any errors in this study. I ask that readers consider the former and try to forgive the latter. McCammon, Idaho April 2009 ...