View taken on road between Bonar Bridge and Creich – looking towards Creich in 1917
The images and letters are courtesy of Stacey York, Mechanic Falls, Maine, USA. The series of images from Stacey are in the sequence on Forestry Memories from No 6282 to No 6298 and forms part of the Forestry Memories Groups collection ‘American Sawmillers in Scotland 1917’.
In the Great War of 1914-18 the UK and its allies were facing severe shortage of timber products to keep the coal mines operating and providing power for manufacturing for the war effort. Timber railway sleepers for the railways to the war front in Europe were urgently required and also wood for manufacturing of boxes and containers for munitions and other products. German submarines were severely interrupting timber imports and there was a great shortage of men to work in the forests and timber industry in UK because they had been called up in their millions to serve in the war effort as soldiers and sailors. An original request for assistance with timber cutting and sawing in British forests from the British Government was directed to the New England States.
A rapid response to the British crisis was taken on board by six New England States and a specially convened committee organised the supply of one sawmill unit funded by each state. The states involved were Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. In addition several individual companies and many individuals provided the necessary funding for a further four sawmill units resulting in a total of ten units and all their equipment being sent to Liverpool and eventually to Ardgay in Ross-shire in the summer of 1917. The timber workers and saw millers were on a contract to the British Government for a period of one year.
Lovell wrote a series of short letters to his parents and sister describing his experiences and adventures. These letters and companying photographs were kept by his parents and then the family. Forestry Memories is very privileged to have been offered the opportunity to place these on the website.
The view is almost certainly taken from the road heading towards Dornoch from Bonar Bridge and directed towards Creich. The Creich church and graveyard are out of shot on the right. The red spot indicates where it is thought the Sawmill Unit No 2 was located over at the back the hill ridge and into a small valley within the forest somewhere above the manse. Sawmill Unit No 1 is also assumed to have been located a little closer to the camera possibly somewhere on the slope above the tree hidden road. The photograph may have been taken shortly after the ten sawmill unit teams arrived in Ardgay in June 1917 and were scoping out the potential locations for the three sawmill units allocated to Swordale Wood (Skibo Estate) featured in the image. The tree canopy is very intact and no clearing has taken place where Unit No 1 was thought to be located.
It would be of significant interest if local historians were able to place the locations of the three American mill units No 4, No 1 and No2 in the Swordale Wood with No 4 unit closer to Bonar Bridge and No 2 at the Creich end. There is also some elusive detail of a major sale by auction of all the sawmill equipment, stores and materials (originally all paid for by the American states and companies) after the contract ended in June 1918 and the men had all returned home or enlisted into the US army (Forestry Corps) directly into France. Any details of this would be welcome.
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Groups: American sawmillers in Scotland 1917, Caithness and Sutherland