Maine USA – Mill Unit no 2 in Scotland June 1917 to June 1918 – Reunions 1919 and 1922
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.
Lovell Churchill of South Paris, Maine, completed his yearlong contract with the British Government, as a member of the Unit No 2, felling and sawmilling timber in the Bonar Bridge area for the war effort. His granddaughter Stacey writes: “Lovell returned to Boston on the S S Melita, leaving Liverpool on June 16, 1918. He was ordered by the draft board to report for duty August 28, 1918 and was sent to Camp Devens, Massachusetts for his Army boot camp training. During September the Spanish Flu broke out in camp. His letters state that they were losing 60 men a day to death from the ‘flu and that the man who slept next to him died. Historical sources indicate that a quarter of the men at the camp went down sick and that somewhere between 760 to 1000 men died. The camp was locked down in quarantine. After the war ended on November 11th, Lovell was discharged on December 11th 1918.
Lovell remained a member of Union #974, the brotherhood of carpenters and joiners, and worked on jobs throughout the eastern seaboard and in Texas. After the death of his sister, Beryl, in 1920 and his brother-in-law, Dell, in 1922, he took on the duty of helping raise his 3 nephews through financial means while his parents took in the boys.
He didn't forget how to dance and he loved to play piano. He played from time to time at a local dance and even on the pier in Old Orchard Beach and later he also owned and raced horses. He married in 1949 and had a family of two girls”.
The reunion invitation and menu featured above is quite a surprise as it has a list of dish ingredient origins that would challenge a local Scottish restaurant close to the sources. Perhaps there is a bit of naming licence to rekindle a sense of the Scottish connections that they all had experienced for one year in the hills and forests around Ardgay and Bonar Bridge in Sutherland. The result is a wonderful evocative menu that would be a real talking point and topped off by coffee as per a celebrated ‘Maggie Ross’. Brilliant!
The PDF link below leads to a second document relating to a proposed reunion in 1922 by the New England Sawmill Units Association. The headed notepaper reveals a formal committee structure of President, Vice-President and Secretary/Treasurer. Can we assume W D Towner, E G Walker and J L Mullavey were all former Sawmill Unit members in who worked in Scotland?
The 1922 note also refers to some type of newsletter or circular going by the name of ‘HOOT MON’ that was sent out to former unit members. The jocular and irreverent tone probably extended to the naming of the newsletter with a music hall type Scottish caricature title. The tone of the information note points to an event that would be great fun and a very lively, rumbustious gathering of former comrades.
It would be interesting to hear of any descriptions of the reunion events and more names of the men who formed the original sawmill units from the six New England states?
Please see PDF for image of the 1922 reunion arrangements.