Here's the bulk of the history. I left out the tool techniques described and explained during the demonstrations. I will eventually get those together as linked documents along with pictures.
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Circa 1716 the first of the French settlers arrived in Louisiana. They were trappers - fur traders. These men were not farmers and relied upon hunting for food. The French government decided it was necessary to have active agriculture if they were to establish a successful new colony.
They chose to bring immigrant German farmers to Louisiana to provide their know-how and strong work ethic in order to cultivate this new territory and make it suitable for a settling. The first Germans arriving here would have been in 1722. They settled upon what is called the German Coast and lays along the banks of the Mississippi River in the parishes of St Charlse, St John the Baptist and St James. Some of these farmers were German only in the language they spoke as they came from German speaking regions of France such as Belgium and Alssas Loraine. This made for a smooth integration into the existing French culture. They would inter-marry and and one would assume this explains the lack of Germanic cultural clues prevalent today.
The Germans arrived to a rich fertile land excellent for agriculture. Their first task was the felling of trees to build structure and make way for the crops they were soon to grow. Imagine walking through the woods, look around at all of the trees, many of them far larger than those today. Now imagine felling all of these trees by axe and imagine them out of the way... What's left behind? Stumps, and plenty of them! These early settlers would have removed these stumps by digging and cutting around them then using leverage from large timbers. It was no easy task to say the least.
The Germans built square houses with square timbers, so another task they faced was the processing of round trees into square timbers. This was done by hewing the the logs with an axe, a method called juggling. Next the logs were further refined by use of the much heavier finishing tool, the broad axe. Indications of the use of broad axes in this process can be found in the early surviving buildings along the German coast. Later buildings however show a change in this process as the foot adze, the tool of choice for the French, became the tool used for finishing logs. The broad axe is a much faster and easier tool to use and this transition can only be explained by the lack of skilled blacksmiths available. The adze is a far simpler tool to smith and they likely were more easily imported by the governing French.
In addition to hewing timbers, smaller lumber was needed to build a house or barn. These timbers were sawn using the pit saw. Pit saws got their name from the pits in the ground over which a log was placed. With one worker in the pit (the pitman) controlling the saw's "box" or handle and another standing above (the tillman) steering and controlling the till or top handle of the saw. Now in Louisiana the prospect of digging a five to six foot deep pit is out of the question as the water table and sea level of the land would not allow for the pit to remain dry. A compromise was made with a shallow pit and a low supporting structure to elevate the log further and allow this sawing work to be performed. The less energy required to raise a log from the ground required the better for the workers. Evidence of these pits is present in areas along the German coast but have mainly been erased by the continuing expansion of modern commercial farming.
Once these smaller timbers were sawn they must be held together to form the structure. This construction style is referred to as timber frame construction... A system of mortices, tenons, half laps and other joints held together by both physics and wooden pegs. These pegs were made by rieving green oak or hickory into small billets with a froe and beetle then allowing them to dry. It was important to use dry seasoned wood for these pegs as green wood would shrink leaving the joints week. And exceptionMRI this was likely made on early structures. Building the structure with all green timbers would mean the timbers would also shrink compensating for this. The pegs were then shaped on a shave horse, a form of foot operated clamping bench, with a draw knife. These same tools wod have also been used to produce shakes, or wooden shingles, to cover the roof.
The 1780's & 90's would have been the first period of real commercial prospect of Cypress lumbering. At this time Louisiana was not yet a part of the American states and was under Spanish rule. This was the early days of the New Orlean's Cooperage industry, the trade of building barrels and crates and cisterns. The major market for Cypress was in the form of empty sugar boxes exported to the Spanish Caribean for the packaging and sale of sugar. Louisiana had small crops of sugar cane here and there for use in syrup making but the process of granualization had not yet been introduced. As the end of the 90's approached this export industry all but stopped due to political upheavals. While the export of Cypress dwindled the domestic use of cypress experienced a massive upswing due to the Good Friday Fire.
New Orleans was a well establish port city and in 1788 on Good Friday, a day of reverence observed by the wholly Catholic state the Friday before Easter, resulted in the burning of approximately 80% of the city. 956 building and residencies burned to the ground. Six years later in 1794 another fire broke out consuming approx 20% of the city or 206 buildings. This sudden need for lumber in the rebuilding of businesses and homes meant a rappid growth of the lumber industry. The demand for lumber was so high that many lumber yards in New Orleans were unable to acquire lumber quick enough and many builders resorted to using green, unseasoned lumber - a practice frowned upon by architects and builders alike. This shortage also lead to extensive poaching of lumber by unscrupulous fellers.
The pit saw was the predominate means of cutting lumber until the early 1800's. While the rest of the country was employing water wheel driven sash mills this wasn't an option for Louisiana Lumberers. The lack of mountains or hills here meant a lack of moving water sufficient to power a water wheel. In 1803 an industrious individual had the brilliant idea of digging a trench from the swamp to the river's levee. After the spring flood came and crested the levee's banks the water trapped in the swamp would normally find it's way out through the swamps. This time though after the river receded this man cut a trench through the levee as well causing this trapped water to rush back to the river. This allowed him to power a water wheel! The other ingenious aspect of this design was that this rapidly moving water gave him an excellent means of moving his logs from the draining swamp to the mill that would saw them!
1816 saw the first steam powered saw mill however the high price of steam engines made this cost prohibitive to most mills. As an illustration of this in 1835 an inventory of Evergreen Plantation in Edgard was done following a bankruptcy proceeding. In this assessment of assets the beautiful plantation home along with it's large furniture items was valued at $10,000. Compare this to the 16 horse power steam engine on the property assessed at $7,600! This was a poor quality steam engine from New York at that, the more reliable steam engines came from Pa and cost as much as $20,000.
Despite the high cost of steam power it eventually dominated the lumbering industry and was Louisiana's own Industrial Revolution.
Eventually almost every virgin Cypress tree in Louisiana and the entire South East was felled. Now all we have left of those old days are the subtle reminders found across the South. The once lost but found again sinker Cypress logs. Archeological excavations and most importantly the timber frame buildings which still survive and the tool marks found within.
