(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved. Contact us for information about using this image.
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Hundreds of river men like the ones in this photograph shepherded logs cut in northern New England down the Connecticut River to Turners Falls, Massachusetts, in the annual spring "log drive." The men worked from 4:30 in the morning until 7:30 at night for $2 to $2.50 a day plus board. The ferry in the foreground transported the draft horses used to pull stranded logs off gravel banks. The river men performed the dangerous task of breaking up "log jams' on the river. Men from the Turners Falls Lumber Company sorted some of the logs when they reached the Falls; the rest of the wood continued down the river to Holyoke and then on to Hartford, Connecticut.