A Piece of History

[Colliemom]

I wanted to share a little piece of history with you. Otsego County where I live was a busy place in the mid 18O0’s when logging camps were established to cut down he millions of acres of white pine. Settlements like Waters, Otsego Lake village, Gaylord and a number of other small towns sprung up around the county, a number that now are just memories. There were a number of saw and shingle mills in Waters and in the Otsego Lake area especially along the northeast and southeast ends of the lake along the railroad. Logs were hauled to these mills by railroad spurs amd horse teams, and across the frozen lakes in winter. The bottom of Big Bradford Lake near Waters and Otsego Lake have a lot of logs or sawn parts of logs laying down there from those years. Back about 10 years or so ago we had some very low water levels and some of the logs from Otsego Lake started to pop up off the bottom from the wave action of boats and other things. One day while I was working at the park, my coworker and I were driving a Gator down the beach doing a trash run, when we came across this log slab, cut from the outside edge of a white pine, p that had washed up on the beach. It was soaking wet and gray and smooth as silk, so you could tell that it had been down on the bottom of that lake for a long time. At least a century. We picked it up and I decided to hold onto it, so I let it sit out in the sun until it started to dry out and then I stored itin my garage And then into my shed when I moved towhere I am now. I wanted preserve this piece of history. So finally this spring I sanded down the wood and found some really nice wood under all of the gray that was on the top. My workbench had a pretty good film of gray sand on it by the time I got done, another indication that it had been on the bottom for a long time. The following pictures are what the wood looks like after I had sanded it down and after a neighbor who does refinishing of wood, you probably have seen those beautiful pieces of wood where the grain shows through layers of shiny finish, made me two shelves from this log slab. I found brackets for them, which he attached and I am going to put them up on the wall possibly inmy bedroom, so that I will have a piece of the county history. I plan to have a couple small little plaques made to mount on them to say where they came from.









http://www.otsego.org/ochs/photogallery ... bering.htm

[Shirlv]

Sue, an interesting bit of history. I also understand your appreciate of the wood. I worked at a high school for awhile and would visit the carpentry shop everyday. I like the smell of fresh cut wood. In the past have refinished furniture and appreciate the beauty of wood.

[SoCalGalcas]

Sue, that is beautiful! I am aware of the loss of the white pine forests. Glad you were able to save a little piece of history. Lyn

[MandysMom]

Beautiful wood.

[monik7]

Beautiful! Great project Sue and a wonderful way to save some history of your area.
Sandi

[JudyJB]

Beautiful!! I have heard of people diving in the Great Lakes and rivers that empty into them finding these old logs and retrieving them. Some of these old trees were four or more feet in diameter and very old, so they can mill them into thick boards and make gorgeous tables and other items.

Very nice that you kept this one!

[Bethers]

Oh, Sue, what a beautiful piece of history to have found and brought to a stage to use and show off. I love this!

[snowball]

I love the beauty of wood natural or stained so that the wood grains show hate to see a piece of beautiful wood painted... this is so pretty
sheila

[gypsyrose1126]

What a great idea and what beautiful wood! So nice that you are preserving a piece of local history.

[avalen]

Those shelves are beautiful ! The history is so interesting

[Cudedog]

Those shelves are beautiful ! The history is so interesting

Alice! SO good to see you on here! Where have you been? How are you doing?

Thank you for your post.

Anne

[BarbaraRose]

Those shelves are beautiful! That piece would have made a wonderful fireplace mantle, but also will work great for shelves!

That reminds me I need to do something with that piece of Sequoia tree I have.