The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-10-11
2ernIng Star and Catholic Messenger.
HRW oRLRANB, SUNDAY. OCTOBER H. 1874.
Tho Lumber Trade in Florida.

Southern seao0ard now furnishing Immense
supplies for Northern and foreign cun.
sumption, rs well as for the South herself
Years ago, the hardy lumbermen from
Canada and Maine were in the habit OF
making annual winter raids on the South
ern coast, penetrating often into the in
terror, and monopolizing the profits of this
trade. But. since the war, Southern men,
aided by Northern means, have turned
their attention to this source of wealth,
and numerous immepso saw-mills, with
new and improved machinery, have been
erected, and the somewhat harsh music of
s. tho saw has awakened tho echoes in sylvan
sOlitudes hitherto resounding only to the
cries of the wild animals that peopled
them.
Along the coasts of Georgia, Alabama,
and Florida, both the axes and the saw
mills are now busy, annually sending forth
many millions OF feet of bewn and sawn
lumber and timber to the uttermost ends
of the earth.
A brief outline of what is doing in this
way at one point alone. in the remote re-
gion of Pensacola and Perdido Bay, in
West Florida, will give the foreign reader
faint idea of the rapid growth, and great
proportions this comparatively new South
ern industry is attaining.
The writer visited Perdido Bay last sum-
mer. Darrow-gauge railway ten miles
long connects this land-locked bay with
the fine barbor of Pensacola, which in the
autumn ard winter season is Low filled with
lumber vessels Of all natiopalities while
Pensacola, which has literally arisen from
its ashes since the war, is now rapidly be-
coming n thriving little city from the eff
fects of this trade. For two years succeed
Ing the var, Pensacola, which had been
burned down, was deserted, weeds grew
mp in her streets, and the fox and
wild-furkey abode there. Then the
scattered fugitives began to return,
and fha
among them commenced rebuilding the
saw mills which had been destroyed, and
from these small seeds sprapg up the trade
which now already exports values to the
amount of upward of two million dollars
per annum. Perdido Tor Lost, Bay, SO
called from its having no navigable outlet,
ID now the centre of great movement in
TIMBER cutting, and on it's banks four years
aimee solitary in savage wiidness, are now
ak large saw mills, and two additional
monster ones in course of construction. In
size, cost and perfection of machinery,
these new saw-mills are unsurpassed any
where. Their enterprisipg owners, North
western men, have bought principality,
IN extent two hundred thousand acres,
from the State of Alabama, lying on the
opposite side of Perdido Bay, that being
the boundary between Florida and Ala
bama, and will conduct operations on
grand scale. The consequence Of this new
industry has been already to treble the
trade and commerce of Pensacola, with an
ever increasing tendency. Her shipping
lists for the year before last showed one
hundred and two ships, eleven hundred and
twenty three barks, seventy FIVE briggs, and
three hundred schooners, all due to the !
cotton port, owing to its location. It was
confidently anticipated that the trade |
would be doubled during the year Just past. |
The bay of Perdido is we'll worthy of a |
visit by tourist or traveller, for it's natural |
beauties are very great. Its mirror-like
expanee OF unrufiied water, land-locked,
erescent-shaped with indented curves, is |
fringed on its farther side by dark array |
Of pines, with their sombre great foliage |
and straight shafts shooting thirty feet into |
The air without limb below. The prime
val forest, undisturbed as yet by the axe,
lnd without human habitations, alone is
visible. The bay, not being navigable,
has no craft of any kind on its broad bos-
I'm save miniature steamer employed
or transporting RATS of logs over its sbal-
ow surface.
But looking around you, as you stand on
ne pearer side, you observe the marks of
and progress in the mills. ply.
ng ceaselessly their busy saws, the piles
u hewn End GAVIN timber, and the grow
ne village and workmen's houses constitu-
ing respectable settlement, within the
limits of which liquor is forbidden to be
oin ny tbe restrictive law, self.imposed
n this new Maine in the Southern wilder
ess. But eight years since this spot was
wilderness without u single habitatiop,
he haunt of the bear and the panther.
The following extract from an address re-
emily delivered on the completion of a
abroad to it in 1872, by Mr.. Campbell, u
eading lawyer of Pensacola, draws a cur
Gus picture of o locality in the heart of a
egion discovered by Ponce de Leon three
enturies ago, and within six miles of one
= the oldest settlements in the State:
In the dawn of this enterprise, when Mill
lew was wilderness, and the track of the
anther was still on its soil, some men might I
ave been seen trying to finish by night o I
Apin they had commenced to build in the 1
lorning.@ Near by was a women seated ON a
g; patiently awaiting the completion of the
rift, smiles, and counsels, to make glad the
cart of her husband. That husband is INV v
lend, DR.. Mclean, the mill pioneer of Fer. '
do, who, thus oheered and sustained. is
ter many trials. now on the Yarra of nfin,