The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1867-03-15
From the Baltimore gazette.
The Boom Bill.

We have already alluded to the enterprise
manifested by certain parties interested in the
lumber h adelo of Maryland and opposed to the
Pennsylvania monopoly. The names Of some of
them appear as egrporRfors in the Boom Bill, the
passage of which will benefit them, in common
with other Maryland lumber men. But Boom
Bill or no Boom Bill, they are determined to as
sert their right to drive their own lumber down
the Susquehanna to its mouth and to work it up
on Maryland soil. The expense to which they
are subjected at Wiliamsport and the cost OF
transportation from thence are so great that
they prefer TO run the risk of catching their logs
as best they can, satisfied that, even it they lose
one-fourth of them, the cost of their lumber will
be no more than it is at present. A site has al
ready been selected by them about three miles
below Havre de Grace. The tract contains
Sst lr0aG Hr65TT uq9 AaS paR0pt lhfeGfd mills Of
large amount of timber. Three mills are al
ready in the course oferection, capable of saving
twenty million feet of lumber per annum, and
there is room for many more, no water being re-
quired as they are run by steam, sawdust being
used as fuel. A small town has also been laid
off, which has been named Oakington, and pro-
vision has been made for churches and school
lots and other public Improvements 1t is ex-
pected that the demand for labor will be SO
great here that the population will rapidly in
crease and that Darlington will soon rival the
fourishing town Of Willamsport. In this the
projectors may or may not be mistaken 1t
very certain that the passage of the Boom Bill
must enable Maryland to control the lumber
trade and that, in short time, not only the tim
her of Maryland dealers will be fosted to the
Maryland Boom, but also that much of that
owned by Pennsylvania dealers will come TO the
mouth OF the river and be worked up at the
Maryland mills. Whether these mills are to be
at Darlington or Havre de Grace or Port Deposit
or whether there to be mi Is at all of them re-
mains to be SEN. The Boom Bill offers equal
facilities TO all and, on payment of the trfing
boomage prescribed by the act each owner will
be entitled to carry his lumber to whatever point
may be most convenient or advantageous to him
self.
The impetus that will thus be given to nor
tons Of Hartford county by the Maryland Boom
will be far greater than is yet realized At
present mills are not erected, because few lum-
Der dealers even are willing to invest rye
amounts of money in mills to saw timber which
they have TO catch as best they can, at the mouth
of the river or ia the narrows near Spesutia
Island or far below in the gorge at Kent Island,
and considerable portion of which they know
they must lose. No lumber dealers are
going to send th, ir logs down from Pennsylva-
mia subject TO such risks, and consequently there
can be for the mills, which our enterprising citi-
zers are now erecting at Darlington, no work
except what they provide themselves by their
own capital. Upon the erection .of the Boom
however, there will be work for a large number
OF mills, and they will be erected at various
points. Cheap water transportation will invite
Pennsylvania timber to Maryland and compete
ton will so lesser the cost of saving that logs
will be f1onted to Maryland to be sawed up,
which now come down the river in the shape of
arks and RATS. Can any intelligent man doubt
the result Of this ? Must ii not invite capital to
this vicinity, make an increased demand for la.
Dor, add to population, enhance the value of
property and largely benefit neghboring farmers,
by giving them nearer and additional market
for garden and other produce?
AS we have already stated, the opposition to
this Bill by which it was defeated at the last
Legislature, is Pennsylvania opposition. The
loss of lumber transportation to PENNSYLVANIA
roads must be great and the injury 70 the saw
mill town of Williamsport must be very serious
So alive are Pennsylvanians to the necessity of
controlling the lumber trade, that they have
even endeavored by legislation 10 throw every
hindrance in the way of parties who insist on
Heating their logs to tide water. An act was
passed in December, 1866, by the Pennsylvania
Legislature allowing persons, who caught saw
logs floating in the Susquehanna, fifty cen s per
log, and declaring the logs forfeited to the catch
ers unless applied for by the owners within two
months landhills announcing this fact have
been printed and distributed along the river for
the purpose of inducing parties to detain all the
logs that pass the Williamsport Boom and for
cling the owners to pay IA tax of fifty cents, each
time they find them for the logs may be caught
many times in two hundred miles, or to forfeit
them il they do not. Fortunately the rivers are
highways and the owners of Darlington are de-
termined TO test in the United States Courts, the
right of the Williamsport Boom owners to stop
their timber and That of the Pennsylvania Leg
stature to confscate it. Is it not the duty of
our own Legislature at least to give them its
countenance by the immediate passage of the
Boom Bill? From the energy which the House
has displayed during the last ten days in the
prosecution of business we confidently anticipate
that the Bill will be brought ut once from the
hands of the Committee on Corporations and
promptly acted upon.