From Good Wood To Goodwill

There is something refreshing about seeing familiar sights with new eyes. That was my sense while hiking to the summits of North and Middle Tripyramids last weekend.
My hiking group consisted of two old guys (myself included) and three young men of the type who give one hope for the future: two Eagle Scouts and a current member of the Air National Guard. They are the perfect antidote to the violent malcontents and safe space-seeking nebbishes protesting everything that makes America great. If we’re going to keep America great, we need more guys like them.
My “new eyes” came courtesy of a book, “Logging Railroads of the White Mountains,” by C. Francis Belcher. I found a well-worn copy on the bookshelf at AMC’s Greenleaf Hut on Mt. Lafayette earlier this year and purchased a used copy online as soon as I reached civilization (i.e., a place with a cell signal).
The fascinating story of logging the White Mountains in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was accompanied by some shocking photos. It’s hard to imagine now, but much of the area – hundreds of thousands of acres – had been ravaged by clear-cutting and forest fires sparked by the steam locomotives used to bring the timber to market.
One of the region’s timber barons was James E. Henry, the man responsible for putting the town of Lincoln on the map. He’s also the man, along with his sons and hundreds of employees, responsible for cutting millions of virgin trees to stumps, from valley floors to mountain summits. Pictures of the clearcutting look like something not just of another time, but another place as well.
Henry’s East Branch and Lincoln railroad was considered one of the best-build and best-run operations of its day. In his book, Mr. Belcher wrote that “One feature of East Branch camp life – and a nearly unique feature of life in American logging camps – was due to Rule No. 46 of the famed “J.E. Henry & Sons Rules and Regulations.”
The rules covered every aspect of camp life, from the proper care of horses to finable offenses for cutting stumps too high or tops too low (wasting precious board-feet of lumber). But Rule 46 was aimed squarely at getting the most work out of his men: “Any person found throwing food or making unnecessary and loud talk at the tables will be fined.” Mealtime was for eating, not for socializing in the ways rough men might. Henry didn’t become a self-made millionaire by wasting resources or time.
The Henry family’s control over camp and community life was as deep as the roots of the tress they were cutting. Their lumber operation built and rented out homes to the workers, operated the company store and hotel, supplied the ice and electricity, and ran the hospital (subsidizing hospital insurance for workers and their families). James Henry was the local judge; one of his sons was the postmaster.
Henry was a man born into relative poverty who created a multimillion-dollar industrial operation and a town to boot. But even by the standards of his day, how he did it was controversial, earning him the nickname “the wood butcher.” He was quoted as saying, “I didn’t see the tree yet that didn’t mean a damned sight more to me going under the saw than it did standing on a mountain.”
Yet for all the damage done, a hundred years later as I walked in the woods on land once owned by James Henry and cleared to nothing but stumps, I was surrounded by beauty – a forest full of trees and wildlife, a recreation area enjoyed by many thousands of people every season of the year.
The profitable devastation of James Henry and men like him helped to coalesce a growing movement to protect these lands. On March 1st, 1911, President Taft signed the Weeks Act, authorizing Federal purchase of forest lands. Later that month, the 780,000-acre White Mountain National Forest was created.
Mother Nature can do remarkable things with a little help from man. If you didn’t know the history and hadn’t seen the photos, you’d never believe the White Mountains had once been extensively clear-cut. And some of that good wood went to a great purpose: Like many wealthy men of his generation, James Henry gave away much of his profits to worthy causes. For the Henry family, one of those causes was the Morgan Memorial of Boston – what we know today as Goodwill Industries.
There’s a certain symmetry to that. Goodwill provides job training and employment placement services; James Henry knew the value and necessity of honest work. The virgin forests are gone, but the other trees grew back. The profits from resources put to good use more than a hundred years ago are helping people to this day.

Ken Gorrell welcomes your comments at kengorrell@gmail.com