Forest Life and Forest Trees: comprising winter camp-life among the loggers, and wild-wood adventure. / with Descriptions of lumbering operations on the various / rivers of Maine and New Brunswick

by John S. Springer

"Reverend and dear Brother—We have passed through a scene within the last two or three days which will deeply interest and impress you. Our city has met with a calamity unparalleled in its annals, and perhaps unequaled, in proportion to its population and means, by any in our country. We have been inundated by the river in consequence of what is called here an ice-jam. The history of the matter is briefly as follows:

"It sometimes happens that the ice in the river breaks up above, while it remains too strong at the outlet to admit of its passing down. The consequence is the accumulation of a dam of ice which completely fills the river from bank to bank, and heaps up sometimes to the height of from fifteen to thirty feet, and thus forming a reservoir of water above it, which overflows the banks and inundates the country around.

"The present winter has been a remarkable one in the mode of the formation of the ice. After the river was first frozen over, the ice continued to form in cakes or sheets, and to flow down the rapids to the still and frozen portions, and these were drawn under. This continued until the submerged sheets were stopped by rocks or shoals; then the accumulation went on until the bed of the river became consolidated to an astonishing thickness. Around the piers of our great bridge it was cut through to the depth of about fourteen feet. Thus the entire bed of the river seemed to have become, at least except the channel, an almost solid body of ice.

Chase's Mountain, as it appears from Sugar-loaf Mountain.

"The greatest fears were entertained throughout the winter for the consequences during the spring freshet, and yet no effectual precautions could be taken to guard against impending calamity. The very worst of these fears have now been more than realized.

"A few days ago the river began to break up for about thirty miles above the city, while it continued firmly bound for about twelve miles below. There were several different spots where the jams, or ice-dams were formed; and when they broke away, they came rushing down with the force of a mountain torrent, until the strong ice below resisted their progress. These jams came down one at a time, and, lodging against another below, kept increasing their magnitude. The two most formidable jams were within seven miles of the city, in the vicinity of the two largest and most important ranges of saw-mills. Those which formed above, when they broke away, passed through at Oldtown and Stillwater with little comparative damage other than carrying away the bridges, and adding to the size of the jams below.

"The first movement was the raising the two principal ranges of mills from their foundations by the rise of the water. After this the first jam that passed down swept away the Basin mills, which belong to a New York company, and which rented for above ten thousand dollars per annum. They next carried away a large range of mills belonging to some of our most enterprising citizens, and which rented for fifteen thousand dollars per annum. One of the proprietors thus lost about fifty thousand dollars. The mills in these two ranges contained about fifty saws, were possessed of the most unfailing water power, were recently fitted up with the best improved machinery, and performed last year about one third of all the business on the river.

"The jams thus worked their way down gradually, carrying destruction to bridges and small houses, and other buildings on the banks, until they were all concentrated in one immense mass of four miles in length, of great height and depth, and filling the river, which varies in width from one thousand to fifteen thousand feet from bank to bank. Of the magnitude and power of such a mass, no just conception can be formed by persons unused to similar scenes. Above the jam the water was twenty or thirty feet above its usual height, filling up the rapids, and making a dead level of the falls.

"The first injury to the city was from the breaking away of a small section of the jam, which came down and pressed against the ice on our banks. By this, twenty houses in one immediate neighborhood, on the west bank of the river alone, were at once inundated, but without loss of life. This occurred in the daytime, and presented a scene of magnificent interest. The effect of this small concussion upon the ice near the city was terrific. The water rose instantly to such a height as to sweep the buildings and lumber from the ends of the wharves, and to throw up the ice in huge sheets and pyramids. This shock was resisted by the great covered bridge on the Penobscot, which is about one thousand feet in length, and this gave time to save much property from impending destruction. But, meanwhile, another auxiliary to the fearful work had been preparing by the breaking up of the ice in the Kenduskeag River. This river flows through the heart of the city, dividing it into two equal portions. The whole flat on the margin of the river is covered with stores and public buildings, and is the place of merchandise for the city. The Kenduskeag runs nearly at right angles with the Penobscot at the point where they unite. The Penobscot skirts the city on the eastern side, and on the banks of this river are the principal wharves for the deposit of lumber.