Maine USA – Mill Unit no 2 in Scotland June 1917 to June 1918 – Contract with British Government
The USA 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.
The contract signed By Lovell Churchill of South Paris, Maine, in Boston on the 14th June 1917 at the very beginning of the contract period is shown next to the contact release or completion signed by him in Ardgay at the end of the twelve month period on 15th June 1918. Other names shown on the documents are:
Frederick Peter Leay – British Consul General at Boston, Mass.
D P Brown – Witness
E C Hirst – Edgar C Hirst, State Forester of New Hampshire and General Manager of the ten mill units
Douglas ? – Timber Supply Department
J L Bray – Witness (this may be Charles Bray a member of No 10 Unit mentioned in the boxing match event?).
Lovell Churchill, along with many others must have seen a newspaper article looking for men to fulfil a lumber contract in Britain to assist in the war effort. The arrangements and organisation of the whole event took place before America officially entered the war in early April 1917 and was not a military affair.
Stacey writes about her grandfather and his days in May 1917:
"I was looking into the beginning of this. In May, he wrote a letter saying that he went to sign up for the Navy, but they wouldn't take him because he was a tradesman in carpentry. They referred him to civil service to work in the shipyards as a carpenter. He must not have followed up with that because he ended up on a job working on the Dam in Rumford. One minute he was talking about registering for the draft and then the next thing he was going to England”.
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Groups: American sawmillers in Scotland 1917