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New Hampshire Forest History . . . careless harvesting methods of
the 1880s and 1890s set the stage for terrible fires New Hampshire’s history and character have been shaped by the challenges and benefits of its forested landscape. The beginning of New Hampshire’s logging industry was in 1634 when the first shipment of tall pines arrived in England to be made into masts for the ships of the King’s Navy. The tall pine, or King pine, trade with England ended with the American Revolution, but much of the forested land, about 70% of the land south of the White Mountains, continued to be cleared for more farmland—mostly grazing land for sheep— up through the 1850s. As the railways opened up the west, however, farmers moved on to what they hoped was richer land. With the arrival of logging railroads in the mid to late 1800s, logging became a major industry in the White Mountain region. Unfortunately, careless harvesting methods set the stage for terrible fires that raged annually in many locations, including the Kilkenny-Berlin fire in 1903 that “effectively ended logging in this region,” according to a Forest Service article. This fire however, did not impact the land that the Four Soldiers Trail crosses today, though fifty acres were burnt immediately west of the Pond of Safety. The fires to the south in the Zealand Valley were the most severe and most notable. Brooks and streams carried eroded soil, the result of burnt, denuded hillsides, south to the Merrimack River, which carried it on to industrial cities, such as Manchester and Lawrence. There the silt clogged woolen mill machinery and had mill owners looking upstream for the cause, and for solutions, to the problem. This downstream debacle helped the landscape of wasted forests recover. Laws were passed to protect the mills and, therefore, the mountain forests. Ultimately, the U.S. National Forest Service was established in 1911. Some years later, the Great Depression of the 1930s brought most business and industry to a standstill. This also gave New Hampshire’s forests a chance to recover, albeit briefly. By the 1940s, logging was mechanized and much more efficient as the horsedrawn sleds, saws and axes, river drives, and logging camps were replaced with trucks, skidders, chain saws, and logging roads. Since then, people in the logging industry in New Hampshire have an increasingly better understanding of how vital it is to manage the woodlands carefully. These professionals have the knowledge, skills, and equipment to do the job well. It is understood that our forests of today are not a limitless source of lumber for construction or fiber for paper as was once believed, instead our forests are a manageable resource for many uses such as recreation, natural ecosystem protection, and scenic beauty, as well as harvesting trees.
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