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Most of the early settlers of Williamsport lived in log houses, many of them built with timber cut and sawed at a mill on Lycoming Creek, about 4 miles from its mouth.
The pine forests provided the natural resources for settlers to survive the brutal conditions of the frontier.
“Pine timber of the finest kind abounded in those days, but the only demand for lumber was by those who were building houses and barns in the infant settlement,” wrote John F. Meginness, author of the 1892 publication “History of Lycoming County.”
The initial sawmills were primitive and the first significant one in Williamsport was known as the Big Water Mill, built by a Philadelphia firm in 1838.
The framework of timber and cribbing (blocks of wood stacked up) extended from the mainland into the river opposite the lower end of the island, at the foot of Locust Street.
The mill contained four “up-and-down saws,” also English gates, a means of protecting the operator from the lumber kicking back in his face, and the power was furnished by four reaction water wheels, according to Meginness.
It took the vision of a New Hampshire man, Maj. James Perkins, to see that the river could be used as an artery to supply saw mills with logs, but only if some means could be devised to hold the logs until the manufacturing process. Without that, it would be useless to build more mills.
Perkins, who had a factory in Philadelphia, traveled to Williamsport with John Leighton, of Maine, about 1845, according to Meginness.
They came here to “engage in the lumber business, and, should circumstances favor it,” establish a boom in the river,” according to Meginness. They noticed a bend in the West Branch that would naturally draw logs to the south side of the stream.
In those early days, securing logs was done by men in small boats who fastened them together in the form of rafts. To prevent the floating logs from escaping at night, the pioneer lumbermen had to improvise.
Large fires were built along the bank of the river, while other fires were lit on flat boats anchored in the middle of the stream. Men were stationed at several points to catch the logs as they came down river, a job that was difficult and dangerous.
Perkins established the Susquehanna Boom Co. on March 26, 1846, according to Meginness.
The original stock issued in the company consisted of 100 shares of $100 each, and was subscribed for and issued to the following stockholders: Leighton, one share; John DuBois, 25 shares; Matthias DuBois, 25 shares; Perkins, 24 shares; Isaac Smith, 20 shares and Elias S. Lowe, five shares.
By 1849, Perkins completed two temporary booms with sunken cribs. After that, the logs were left to float freely until they reached one of the booms. When they were caught, they were towed into one of the temporary booms.
Mishaps occurred. The flood of 1849 subjected the structures to a very severe test, but they stood it well enough to convince all skeptical lumbermen that a boom could be built, according to Meginness.
City documents about the boom indicated there were 352 cribs in all, each 22 feet high. At the upper end of the boom was a device called a sheer boom. It was 1,000 feet long and was operated by a hand-powered windlass, an apparatus for moving heavy weight. Its job was to gather the logs into the main boom that could hold 300 million board feet of logs.
At the lower end of the boom, the logs were sorted so that each mill would receive its own branded logs.
Logs were moved to holding ponds, where 35 sawmills that lined the riverfront in Williamsport then cut them for lumber that was used to make chairs, tables, desks and house frames.
Many of the lumbermen lived in more modest houses than owners of sawmills, including those from which they could easily walk to work on First and Second streets and not in the opulent Victorian mansions on West Fourth Street that were occupied by the owners of the businesses.
Perkins sold his interest to Peter Herdic & Co., and the mill, after passing through various hands, finally was destroyed by fire in the fall of 1863. Perkins was mayor of Williamsport from 1870-72.
When the massive flood of June 1, 1889, occurred, the boom, which contained nearly 300 million board feet of lumber, was broken for good and every log was carried away, thousands passing south to Chesapeake Bay and out into the Atlantic Ocean, according to Meginness.
“Logs were strewn along the shores of the river and on the islands to the mouth,” he wrote.
While the flood inflicted a heavy loss on the boom company and the manufacturers, the giant fence of wood that was the boom speedily was repaired, and the manufacturers saved what they could by gathering up their stray logs.