Taylor Saw Mill in Derry

"The pride and joy of Ernest Ballard, 84, is this rare, water-powered up and down sawmill he erected at his home in Derry, New Hampshire." (There'll Always be Water Wheels by Neil M. Clark, December 3, 1955.)

This is the Taylor Up and Down Saw Mill at Ballard State Park

The Ballard State Forest in Derry is 71 Acres surrounding a pond, with picnic tables and walking trails, but the main attraction is the Taylor Sawmill. Built 200 years ago, around 1799, it was an advance in technology from a pit saw, where two men used a long two handled saw, one standing above the timber and the other in a dug pit below. The “Up and Down Sawmill” is a mechanized version of the pit saw, using a water powered system of gears and shafts to drive the long blade of the saw. Generally only the saw blade was powered and logs were pushed through by hand, but with some ingenuity the moveable carriage was developed, to move the log through the moving blade.

One of the beautiful results of this type of sawn lumber is that the wood doesn’t display the typical curved cut marks seen on lumber cut by circular saws. Preservationists and renovators prize finding original timbers in old colonial era homes that display the marks of pit saws or “Up and Dow” sawmills. Cut marks are even used for dating colonial homes. This type of lumber, known as “sash sawn” lumber, is produced at the Taylor Saw Mill on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month during the spring and summers. Demonstrations run generally from about 10AM to 3PM through the end of September, as long as there is sufficient water to run the waterwheel at the dam. (This shouldn’t be a problem in 2009!)

The “Up and Down Sawmill” was a short lived technology, which was replaced by the water powered circular saw by about 1825. Circular sawn logs, driven by water turbines, steam, electricity and computers are still the most common type of lumber produced today. Being a short lived technology, there are only a few examples of this type of “Up and Down Saw” surviving in the United States. Other than Derry, you can see one at Old Sturbridge Village, in Massachusetts, or at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont.

The Taylor Saw Mill is located on Island Pond Road in Derry, New Hampshire, on the left, about 3.7 miles from Clam Haven. The historic site is run by both the New Hampshire Division of Parks and Recreation and the Division of Forests and Lands Community Forestry and Stewardship Bureau. For more information see the Division of Forests and Lands website on the 200 year old Taylor Up and Down Sawmill.

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The Taylor Family Tree:

Generation 1. Matthew Taylor was born about 1690 in Northern Ireland and died26 January 1770 near Beaver Lake, Derry, New Hampshire; married about 1720 to Janet Wilson and settled in Nutfield, New Hampshire in 1722. Ten Children

Generation 2. David Taylor, fourth son, born 10 August 1735 in Nutfield; married Margaret Kelsey. Seven Children.

Generation 3. Robert Taylor, born about 1770, died 10 May 1837 in Derry; married to Dolly Colby. Robert Taylor bought the property where the sawmill now stands in 1799. He began to operate the up and down sawmill in about 1805. He and Dolly had ten children, including a daughter Rebecca Morrison Taylor who married John Poulsand Langmaid and died in 1888. He was the uncle to the murdered schoolgirl Josie Langmaid. See the blog posting on Josie's murder on 14 October 2009.


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This story was originally published at www.londonderrynh.net

Copyright 2009, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Murder of Josie Langmaid, Pembroke, New Hampshire

This week I twice watched the NH Public TV presentation of “Josie Langmaid: Murdered Maiden of Pembroke”. The young school girl was murdered in October 1875, and the drama rocked New Hampshire with lurid headlines and court testimony that was transcribed in detail in the local news papers. It was broadcast on October 5, 9 and 12th, and the story has also been told on NH Chronicle. Both were narrated by Fritz Wetherbee, my favorite voice of the Granite State. It is available for $29.95 at the NHPTV website.

Seventeen year old Josie was a beautiful young girl, murdered, raped and beheaded by a French Canadian drifter named Joseph LePage. This trial divided the Yankee New Hampshire community and the newer French Canadian residents, and resulted in LePage confessing to the crime and later hanging at the Concord State Prison in March 1878. Not only did it inspire hot headlines, but also a ballad “Suncook Town Tragedy” and a monument at the place where the murder happened, on Academy Road in Pembroke.

Sadly, just after Josie’s murder, her brother, Waldo, and last surviving sibling, died of Typhoid Fever. The Langmaid chidren are buried together in the Pembroke Cemetery. Of course, after learning about the family, I found a connection to some Nutfield History…..

Langmaid Family Tree:

Generation 1. William Langmaid, born about 1650 in Scotland or England

Generation 2. Samuel Langmaid, born about 1680; married to Mary Hanson

Generation 3. Samuel Langmaid, born about 1710;

Generation 4. Thomas Langmaid, born 29 September 1785 in Chichester, New Hampshire, d. 13 Nov 1845 in Chichester; married 5 April 1812 to Grace Pousland of Beverly, Massachusetts.

Generation 5. James F. Langmaid, born 25 April 1833 in Chichester, died Granite Falls, Minnesota, 1902; married 2 May 1867 in Pembroke, New Hampshire to Sarah Haseltine Cochran.

Children (all died young, all buried with their father and first wife at the Buck Street Cemetery in Pembroke):

1. Josie A. Langmaid, born about 1858, died 4 October 1875 (murder victim)
2. Waldo H. Langmaid, born about 1859 died 15 December 1875
3. Ella B. Langmaid, born about 1861, died 25 May 1862
4. Clarence B. Langmaid, born about 1862, died 12 September 1863

(James F. Langmaid had a brother, John Pousland Langmaid, born 24 April 1817 in Chichester who married Rebecca Morrison Taylor, born in Derry. Rebecca was the daughter of Robert Taylor and Dolly Colby. Robert Taylor was the son of David Taylor, born 10 August 1735, the fourth son of Matthew Taylor and his wife Janet, one of the first settlers of Londonderry.)

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Sources:

The New York Herald, 1875

The Boston Globe, 1875.

The memorial erected after her murder "by the citizens of Pembroke and vicinity to commemorate the place of the tragic death of Josie A. Langmaid."

“The Murdered Maiden Student: A Tribute to the Memory of Josie A. Langmaid” by Rev. S. C. Keeler, courtesy of the Pembroke Academy

“Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts”, Volume 4, by William Richard Cutter, New York: Lewis Publishing Co, 1908

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Suncook Town Tragedy Ballad

Come all young people, now draw near;

Attend awhile and you shall hear,

How a young person of renown

Was murdered in fair Suncook Town.

It was in the morning very cool

When Josie started for her school,

And many the time that road she passed

But little thought she it would be her last.

It was at the foot of Pembrook Street

La Page lay ambushed with a stick;

Long time ago his plans were laid

To take the life of the fair maid.

The mother watched with eager air,

Hoping her daughter would appear,

But when the shades of night drew near

Her darling child did not appear.

The weeping father and the son

All thro' the woods their search begun,

And found at last to their surprise

The murdered child before their eyes.

Her head was from her body tore,

Her clothes were all a crimson gore,

And on her body marks did show

Some skillful hand had dealt the blow.

This monster now so deep in crime,

He thought the peoples' eyes to blind,

But found at last to his mistake,

They had him fast behind the grate.

It was at Concord he was tried.

Unto the last his crime denied,

But he was found to guilty be

And the judge said, "Death is your plea."

And now, La Page, your work is done

And you like Eveuse must be hung,

For we must all examples make

Till crime shall cease in the Granite State."

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Copyright 2009, Heather Wilkinson Rojo