Great Grandfather Sam Severance
And The
Suwannee River Sawmill Company
The story of the sawmill was passed on to me several years ago by Johnnie Jones, our first cousin, once removed. Johnnie and his sisters, Ora, and Alice, live together in Mayo, their spouses having passed away long ago. Ora, the eldest of the three was born in 1905, Johnnie in 1906, and Alice in 1912 (Sadly, Ora and Johnnie have now passed away). The three because of their age, and having lived most of their lives in and around Lafayette County, have many fascinating stories to tell of our ancestors.
Johnnie wasn’t aware of how the sawmill's existence came about so that part of the story comes from my rummaging through a storage trunk containing records placed there by Sam and Caroline many years ago in addition to hours of research examining the many records carefully preserved in the Lafayette County court-house.
When Johnnie was about six, Uncle Jimmy Jones almost daily docked his barge at the country store that Grandpa Allen Jones owned before his death. The store, located on the upper bank of the Suwannee River in Hatch Bend, was a typical cypress plank building supported by cypress stumps, with a long stairway leading from the front porch down to the river landing.
Johnnie, almost every day, walked down the dirt road from his Hatch Bend home to the store to watch Uncle Jimmy dock his barge at the river landing. Once docked, Jimmy and Johnnie would enter the store where Johnnie picked-out his sucker for the day. Then, together they would return to the barge and motor up the River to the Sawmill that was located in the town of New Troy, the long ago county seat of Lafayette County. Once the barge docked, Johnnie and Uncle Jimmy went ashore to meet their many relatives working at the sawmill. Sam Severance had recently purchased a blacksmith shop and several mills in town and it is believed the blacksmith shop, which was located above Jimmy's barge landing, was re-fitted into a sawmill. On a typical day, Sam would operate the mill while Jimmy navigated the river working his barge.
Standard Lumber Company, one of the largest sawmills in the southeast at that time, owned a sawmill in Alton, several miles up river from New Troy. Pine tree logs from the company-owned forest in upper Suwannee and Lafayette Counties were forested daily, the logs then rolled into the river, and floated to the Standard Lumber Company sawmill. While on their journey down river, many of the logs made their way past the Alton sawmill and would eventually sink to the bottom. Jimmy on his barge, motored up the river each day dragging the bottom for the sunken logs. A crane attached to the front of his barge (usually operated by Laurie Severance) would lower a chain with a large hook on the end of it into the river, snag the log, and then raise it to the barge’s deck. The log was then hooked to one end of another chain that was wrapped around a large wheel located on top of the bank, while the other end of the chain (the one wrapped around the wheel), was hooked to the harness of a mule on shore. The mule was then made to walk along the bank, causing the wheel to turn, which then would pull the log up to the top of the bank. Other mules would then drag the logs to the sawmill where they were ripped for pine siding to be used for the buildings in town and farmhouses on the outskirts of town.
Our father, also tells the story that Sam Severance once told him the engine running the sawmill was from the old Madison Steamship which was "purposely" sunk in Troy Springs during the Civil War.
Between 1915 and 1916, logs were becoming scarce in that part of Florida and business began to decline. Uncle Jimmy, now unable to make a decent living, was forced to move the sawmill operation to another property that he owned in Gilchrist County where timber was much more plentiful. Sam, deciding not to relocate, returned to the homestead and along with his children, cultivated the land until his death in 1937.
When Johnnie completed his story of Uncle Jimmy and the barge-sawmill operation, Ora began by telling a story about "Uncle Laurie" pulling up a safe-chest with the same crane used to salvage logs. At the time I had absolutely no idea of what a safe-chest might be, so Ora began by defining a safe-chest as an upright chest used to store dishes and kitchen ware.
While dragging the river for logs with Jimmy one day, Laurie snagged what he thought was a log and when the "log" reached the surface, he found the safe-chest on the end of the hook. The chest, made of red cedar, placed in the river years before, was unharmed by the water so Laurie decided to keep the chest and that evening placed it in Ethel's kitchen where it remained until her death in 1924. Given the chest after her Aunt Ethel's death, Ora placed it in her kitchen where it stands today.
Several days after our conversation about the river barge, Ora and I drove out to her farm in Branford, showed me the safe-chest, and allowed me to photograph it.
Local area historians tell the story that when the town of New Troy was raided by Union Soldiers at the end of the Civil War, the townspeople threw their furniture and belongings into the River to keep the "Yankees" from making use of it. This chest was one of the many pieces of furniture and other personal belongings that ended up in the river. More information about the raids and these items ending up on the bottom of the river can be found in the story of the "One Legged Man.”