Postcards from Vermont's Connecticut River Valley: Canaan & Bradford

Postcards from Vermont's Connecticut River Valley: Canaan & Bradford

Forests

In 1870, at its highest point of deforestation, the Vermont landscape was roughly 70% percent cleared and only 30% forested. Logging had transformed many of Vermont’s green mountains into bare hillsides by the turn of the 20th century. These postcards depict the deforested landscape along the banks of the Connecticut River.

The Connecticut River was the site of numerous log drives in 19th-century Vermont. The men who worked these drives had difficult jobs, working from dawn to dusk, balancing on moving logs in cold, wet conditions. Their work required alertness, sure-footedness, strength and agility as they rode the logs to regional markets.

Bradford: R.W.W. Wills [text somewhat unclear]

UVM Special Collections

Log Drive: B. McDonald, Beecher Falls, VT

[1907–1909]

Postcards, approx. 3x5", scanned 3/19/2014

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Canaan, VT; Beecher Falls, VT; Bradford, VT; 1907–1909