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In the spring of 1947, Gould Paper company conducted its last log drive. By all accounts it was one of the largest and most spectacular drives in Adrirondack history.
The drive began deep in the woods above McKeever and followed the Moose River 30 miles downstream to the mill at Lyons Falls. Because there were no storage dams along the route, drivers relied on natural runoff to float the 13 foot 4 inch logs through numerous falls and rapids.
The operation got underway under inauspicious circumstances. Meltwater from a January thaw raised the level of the river to the point that timber stranded ashore from previous drives was floated free. The stray logs drifted to the falls at Lyonsdale. The resulting log jam combined with ice and heavy rains to raise the river even higher.
Around the first of April the river flooded at Moose River Village washing 6,000 cords of Herb McGee's timber downstream. These logs collided with the strays and created an 11,000 cord jam.
Shortly afterward, Joe McDermott blasted a channel through the ice at Lyonsdale Bay. This allowed McGee and his crew to start working to break the massive log jam.
The task began on Saturday April 5. Teams of skilled lumbermen worked around the clock until the jam was finally opened at 3:00 p.m. on Friday the 11th. It proved not a minute too soon.
On Saturday, the 12th, heavy winds and ice broke the retaining boom at McKeever and another 6,000 cords of logs crashed downriver. To make matters worse, the ice went out of the upper Moose and a bank of Hugh Dowling's logs was swept away. The 4,000 cords of timber roared through McKeever at 7:00 p.m. and went straight through to Lyons Falls.
By Sunday night 25,000 cords of timber strained against the mill boom at Lyons Falls.
Her McGee took charge of the North branch drive and Hugh Dowling directed the South branch. Within a week, newspapers proclaimed that the drive was under control.
Heavy rains continued to plague the operation and numerous small log jams occurred along the route. Several men were injured and the woods foreman Pat O'Leary was drowned.
The great drive of 1947 was to be the last log drive in New York State.
From Moose River Quarterly
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