A National Historic Lombard Steam The American Society of Mechanical Engineering Log Hauler Mechanical Engineers Landmark August 14, 1982 Patten, were availble and moreover could get abandoned. Some attempts were through a winter on wild hay cut on made to drive poplar pulpwood but it the meadows in the woods while became waterlogged so quickly that horses required good hay and grain. it usually sank in the pond in which it The oxen in many cases hauled was landed. pine long distances and the logs were As a result of these limitations, driven out of streams so small that it there were at the turn of the century now seems hardly possible that they uncounted thousands of acres of fine ever floated a pine log. When it was maple, white and yellow birch, beech, considered that the available pine and ash, which, with the equipment was exhausted there still remained available, could not be gotten to any many small areas with a good stand market. Lumbering in Maine, which began of “pumpkin” pine. Thus the time was ripe for the de- along the coast with cutting pine for One town in northern Maine was velopment of a mechanical means of masts for the Kings Navy, was limited known as the dry town because in all hauling logs and the opportunity was to the suitable timber growing near its 36 square miles there is no stream not overlooked by the mechanics who enough to the water to permit its large enough to float a log. had built and repaired the lumbering transportation by oxen to water on When the lumbermen turned to equipment of the period. which it could be floated to the ship. spruce and horses displaced the In the 90’s when the internal com- As new mills developed and lumber- oxen, the situation was changed only bustion engine was being perfected ing moved up the rivers the cut was temporarily. A road for horses and the horseless carriage was be- still limited to lumber that could be must be entirely down grade or at coming commonplace, lumbermen hauled to water on which it could be least generally level. A four turn road returning from visits to Bangor floated to the mills. was considered about the limit for brought reports of the progress The pine was hauled almost en- profitable lumbering. Furthermore, James and Ira Peavey were making tirely by ox team. Six, sometimes the necessity of driving these logs to with their log hauler. eight oxen, made a team. A small market limited the activities of the Vehicles powered by gasoline en- operation was one team cutting per- lumbermen to those varieties that gines were running successfully, but haps 600,000 feet BM in a season. would float, that is, spruce, fir, cedar these ran on wheels on the ground. Larger opertors had two or three and pine. But the log hauler must run on snow teams, and the size of crew and the It was impractical to mix in a drive and a wheel with its very limited sur- cut were increased correspondingly. even pine which floats nearly sub- face in contact with the surface of its The tree was “topped off” to make merged with the smaller spruce which roadbed would certainly slip if the sur- all of the marketable timber into one floats with a fourth of the log out of face were snow and ice. log and this long log with the bark water. When a lumberman could not Peavey’s solution of this difficulty removed from one end, was dragged resist the temptation and put a fine was to apply the power through two on a “go devil” or bob sled to the big pine with his spruce, the log large screws. This worked on ice and landing where it was sawed into short made so much trouble that it was a full scale model actually hauled logs lengths. usually pushed into a poke logan and on a good hard road, but the screw The horses of this period were not churned up the snow so much that it equal to this task while the oxen, the lost traction and in loose snow it was ordinary beasts of burden of the time, pretty nearly helpless. Peavey’s log

Early type of “He has known the Lombard Steam crash of the falling Log Hauler with spruce...has trod upright boiler and the ruts to the engine. camps long ago...boasted the scale of the heavy loads that cricked o’er the frozen snow...” The Old Lumberman, Harold P. Andrews. hauler never got beyond the experi- generating power which is transmitted of their friendly conversation, Wood- mental stage. through a drive wheel on the shaft of bury told Lombard about his plans for In this same decade a carpenter the upper pair of trucks. Woodbury a log hauler. Woodbury went back to millwright and general handyman, envisaged this assembly reversed, his farm in Patten, where his dream of Johnson Woodbury, who was some- the track on the ground, the power a steam log hauler became only a thing of an inventor in his own right, applied to the trucks and the lags local tradition. and all his life had been familiar with moved by the revolving wheels. The Alvin Lombard, back in his shop in lumbering and its problems had his weight of engine providing the power Waterville, was a mechanic of more mind at work on the log hauler. Almost supported by the trucks would hold than average ability who already had any line of reasoning that he followed the lower half of the lags firmly to the a number of inventions to his credit. brought him to the necessity of some road bed, whatever its nature, thus Among these were a machine for form of track that would give the providing a track on which the trucks barking pulpwood, and a governor for wheels the traction that snow could rolled forward. The rear truck picked water driven turbines, which had not provide. Railroads would do this up the lag it had just passed over, come into general use. but were obviously not the solution while the forward truck laid down a lag The story, often told, of his start on of the problem. When he moved to extend the track. He demonstrated the log hauler relates that, going a house, beams were laid on the that this would work by rolling the home from work one evening on the ground for a short distance and the tread of his horsepower up an incline street car he fell in with an official of building moved along on rollers run- by turning the fly wheel. one of the big lumber companies. In ning on these tracks. As it pro- Woodbury did not have the facilities the course of the conversation about gressed, the beams in the rear were or the funds to develop his plans for a lumbering problems, this gentleman moved forward so that there was al- that would run on snow, but at said that he was tired of wearing out ways a track in front of the moving a town meeting in which the voters horses hauling logs and suggested building. By repeating this process were considering the construction of that Lombard put his mind to work often enough, the building could be an oversized roller to pack the snow to constructing a machine that would re- moved a considerable distance, but make a hard road bed, he asked the place the horses. Lombard acted very obviously this method was impracti- town to wait until the next year when promptly on this suggestion, going at cal for hauling logs. there would be available a machine once to his shop and applying himself But Woodbury had in his barn a which would run on snow and would to the problem with such diligence “horsepower,” a treadmill commonly push or pull a snowplow. The town that in 24 hours he emerged with the used to provide power for a thrashing built the roller, which proved impracti- answer all set forth in a drawing and a machine or a drag for sawing cal and was soon abandoned. Later working model. Lombard arranged wood. The essential part of the tread- developments proved that Wood- with Waterville Iron Works to build the mill was an endless of wooden bury’s snow plow would have been first Lombard log hauler and his ap- lags running over two pairs of trucks successful. plication for a patent was filed Nov. 9, to which the lags were geared. Set at There is a story which relates a 1900. Patent No. 674,737 for a log- an angle the weight of the horses meeting of Woodbury and Alvin Lom- ging engine was issued May 4, 1901. walking on the lags tends to force the bard in the railroad station at Milli- The description, claims and draw- lags down hill, turning the wheels and nocket when they were leaving town ings of this patent are restricted to the after working as millwrights in the new mills of the Great Northern Paper Company. It is said that in the course

A Peavey Log Hauler, Traction was obtained by revolving screws. traction and method of support. It dis- equipped with the track cov- traction through trucks running on a closes a method of obtaining traction ered by the Lombard patent. These moveable track covered by the Lom- in which the engine is supported on were wheel tractors made to run on bard patent. There is no evidence that two pairs of geared wheels over which the ground, but when later the Holt Holt’s company had any patents on runs a track made up of lags bolted tractor ran on a track, the impression the track, but the new company together in a manner to make the was created that this type of tractor copyrighted the name Caterpillar as track flexible and geared to mesh with originated on the Pacific coast and applied to this type of traction. the wheels. The weight of the engine that Holt was the real inventor of As a matter of fact there is in the holds the lags on the ground (or the track. Patent Office files Patent No. 23,853 snow) firmly in place. The power is In response to our inquiry for infor- issued May 3, 1859, to Warren P. Mil- applied to the forward pair of trucks mation on the relations of the Lom- ler of Marysville, Calif., for a locomo- which, as they turn, move a lag for- bard Company and the Holts, Mr. tive machine for propelling plows. The ward and place it on the ground to Louis Lombard very kindly sent us specifications and drawings of this extend the track forward. The rear various papers relating to the history patent are a quite accurate descrip- wheels, as they move forward, pick of the Lombard log hauler. Among tion of the traction system described the last lag off the ground and move it these was a copy of a memorandum in Lombard’s patent and his claim forward. By this arrangement the en- found in the files of the Alvin O. Lom- states briefly: “What I claim as my gine rolls on a track held firmly on the bard Traction Co. In this memoran- invention and desire to secure by let- ground or loose snow by its own dum Mr. Lombard states that the first ters patent is: the combination of the weight with sections of the track laid Holt tractor was built in 1907 but that endless chain or track with the lead- down in front of the drivewheels as it he does not think it was put on the ing and driving wheels cc and the moves forward. This, in brief, was the market until a later date. In regard to supporting tracks ee wholly con- basic invention which made possible the payment by Holt for Lombard’s structed and operated substantially all the tractors, , earth patent rights the memorandum as and for the purpose set forth in said movers, and the military tanks. states: “On February 21, 1910, Alvin specifications.” At the time Lombard began de- and Samuel Lombard made a trip to Miller did not design his tractor to veloping his log hauler, two California California to see and run on snow but he states that it companies, Benjamin Holt of Stock- advised him that he was infringing the should be especially suited to soft ton and the Best Company of Oak- Lombard patent and it was at that time and sandy soil where wheels would land, were making farm tractors. Holt that Holt acknowledged that he was make ruts. Miller’s patent was issued bought out the Best Company. In the infringing and agreed to pay a royalty and had expired long before Lom- following year Best’s son organized to Lombard if Lombard would send bard, Woodbury or Holt had even a new company to make tractors. him a contract agreement after his thought of tractors and was forgotten There was prolonged litigation be- return home. This Lombard did send even in the Patent Office. If Miller ever tween the two companies, but even- but the agreement was never signed tried to develop his invention he was tually they were combined as the by Holt nor was any royalty ever paid probably classed as another of the Caterpillar Traction Company and the Lombard by him or by his company.” crackpots who were trying to build fly- business moved to Peoria, Illinois There was also included a copy of a ing machines. where they began the manufacture of patent issued to Holt in 1912. This Whoever had the idea first, it was covers a method of suspension and stabilization of the tracks and does not touch the fundamental principle of

A woodburning On an icy road “Lombard” (c. “Lombards” could 1900-1910) built in pull a long string of Waterville, Maine. sleds loaded with It was put into logs. operating condition February 7, 1980 for a two- mile run—its performance was deemed “superb”. Lombard whose skill, ingenuity and comparatively easy but required a tors. This involved the construction of perseverance built the idea into a ma- complete turn of the wheel to get a dam, the installation of a generat- chine that worked. In 1900 the Alvin much movement of the runners. ing plant and of three miles of double O. Lombard Traction Company began The upright boiler and engine were trolley lines. This machine actually in the Waterville Iron Works the con- soon replaced by a horizontal boiler hauled logs three miles but on the first struction of the Lombard steam log and engine, and in its final form, the fall of wet snow, so many short circuits hauler, and on Thanksgiving Day of steam log hauler was a railroad yard developed that the machine was put that year, the first machine made its engine, known as a saddle back. The out of commission and the project trial run. The trial was successful but small truck was replaced by a bob was abandoned. the machine developed a weakness sled and the driver by two tracks. The It was soon found that where condi- that was to give serious trouble before water tank was draped over the boiler, tions made it possible to supply coal it was overcome. On snow everything giving this type of engine its name of that coal was a more economical fuel ran smoothly but when it hit frozen saddle back. This arrangement of than wood. Coolidge (History of the ground the cast iron lags of the tracks boiler and water tank putting the Maine Woods, p. 144) quotes the rec- began to break. This weakness was greater weight of the machine on the ord of one operation in which a log finally overcome by making the lags tracks, gave maximum traction and hauler burning wood in hauling 3½ of the hardest and toughest steel ob- was especially suited to the log haul- million feet BM of logs used 350 cords tainable. er. There was a cab in front for the of wood. The preparation of this quan- The first log hauler had an upright steersman, giving some protection tity of wood in advance to give it time boiler and two upright engines. Lom- from the weather, and one at the rear to dry would be quite a sizable opera- bard attempted to avoid the use of a for the engineer and for the fuel. tion in itself. In the war period when it differential to compensate for dif- In 1903 the first log hauler was sold was difficult to get coal some of the ferences in speed of the tracks in to a Maine lumber firm and soon a steam log haulers burned wood, but making turns by using an engine number were hauling logs on snow for the most part they were operated working independently for each track. roads and they rapidly came into gen- on coal. This worked so far as compensating eral use in Maine and New Hamp- In its final form the Lombard was differences in speed went, but when shire. One was shipped to Montana, satisfactory, but in the early models the two engines got in step, the vibra- and a Wisconsin firm was licensed to structural defects developed and its tion became so great that this plan build tractors under the Lombard pat- operational breakdowns caused se- was abandoned and the conventional ent. The activities of the Lombard rious trouble. The strain and wear on differential was used. The forward Traction Co. were not limited to log the tracks was especially heavy and end was carried on a bob sled with a haulers, but tractors were built for when it became necessary to replace king pin to permit free movement of special purposes such as a special a track on a hauler stalled in the deep the runners. The first one was steered body for hauling heavy blocks of snow with the thermometer register- by a pair of horses, but this primitive stone from quarries. One was built for ing zero or lower the maintenance method was soon replaced by a steer- carrying mail and passengers over re- crew faced a major problem with all ing wheel with pinion on the staff mote snow-covered roads. the odds against them. But they al- which meshed into a 16-inch gear There was one attempt to build a ways managed and the haulers were wheel. This, in turn, had a pinion on its log hauler powered by electric mo- strengthened by making the parts shaft which operated a quadrant at- heavier and of tougher steel. tached to the bunk of the bob sled. The first Lombard gasoline engine This double reduction made steering machine was built in 1909 by Lom-

A typical log hauler crew consisted of an engineer, fireman, conductor, and the steerer. The conductor, riding close to the rear, communicated with the cab by a bell rope which ran along the sled stakes. bard for H. H. Linn and purchased by the big wheel and kept the engine in made by the tractor. No chains were him for running a tent dog show, the road. He had a roof over his head used to hold the load. Each bunk of which he conducted on the road at and the end of the boiler at his back, the two sleds making a unit had a that time. This is the same Linn who but in front there was no windshield rocker swinging on a king pin at the later built gasoline tractors which and he took whatever the weather center of the bunk, and at each end of were used in New York State for haul- batted up. On the hills, which were the rocker was a massive stake ing logs. By 1917 Lombard seems to sometimes long with sharp curves, hinged at the end of the rocker so that have been making gasoline powered they had no control of the speed ex- when it was dropped down it served engines exclusively. cept to reverse the engine and the as a skid on which the logs rolled The gasoline log hauler differed steersman was very busy spinning down to the landing. from the steam driven machine only in his wheel to keep the runners pointed The number of loads in a train var- the substitution of the steam boiler in the same direction as the road. An ied with the road. The steam engines and engine by a gasoline engine. engineer in the limited space in the probably averaged about 8 cars to These did not have the power of the rear cab shoveled coal into the fur- a train, but on good roads in good steam driven engines and were not nace, ran the engine and watched the condition trains of 10 or 12 cars were efficient for long hauls. On a road steam and water gauges. A conduc- hauled. where the steam driven engine would tor was in charge of the train, combin- The roads made for the log haulers haul 12 sleds, the gasoline engines ing in one person the duties of the were wider than those made for the were limited to five sleds. However, conductor and the brakeman of the horse drawn sleds, and stumps, the gasoline machines were very use- conventional freight train. rocks, and other obstructions were re- ful for yarding and spotting loaded An operation using four or five log moved so that a few inches of snow sleds for the steam haulers on the haulers found it necessary to have a would pack down to make a smooth long hauls and were used quite exten- dispatcher with a board on which the surface. The tracks packing down the sively for shorter hauls. They were positions of the various trains could snow made their own road and some operated by one man from a cab in be plugged in and telephone connec- of the Lombards had a scraper fixed the middle, doing the steering and tions with the terminals and the “turn behind the runners which could be running the engine. out.” adjusted to smooth the road and In 1934 Lombard built a log hauler Lumber was hauled on bob sleds throw the snow to one side. A special equipped with a , in- with bunks 9 feet long. A load for each snow plow was designed which cut creasing the power and reducing the pair of these sleds was about 6,000 tracks for the sleds, and at night the cost of operations. But by that time board feet. To secure maximum effi- water carts, big wooden tanks on bob the development of the truck for haul- ciency special sleds were designed. sleds, went over the roads spraying ing lumber had made the log hauler These were built by the Lombard the tracks with water to make them obsolete and the first diesel was the company or they sold the metal parts icy. Patrol men went over the roads last log hauler made by the Lombard to those who preferred to build their constantly, repairing minor defects company. own sleds. The log hauler sleds were and keeping them in good condition. The operating crew of the steam identical in design with the horse The log haulers required snow to log hauler included the steersman drawn bob sleds but larger and of make a road and while too much who sat in the little cab in front behind very much heavier construction. The nine-foot-long bunks made the sleds a little wider than the tractor. This made the sled track outside the track

On large A “Lombard” could operations coal haul 300 tons of was the usual wood at a speed fuel...but many of 4-5 m.p.h. haulers on the smaller jobs burned wood. Though coal was easier and spared the risk of ramming out a boiler plug while stuffing the fire box, wood burning among the pines made a log hauler truly independent. snow was a handicap, not enough of the lumber industry, the trucks were road could be made rapidly and at snow was a calamity. being developed, made bigger, comparatively Iow cost. Over these The length of the road varied stronger, with improved tires and roads heavily loaded trucks moved at greatly. In some cases it was five or more powerful engines, and were a good speed taking long logs or pulp- six miles from the yards to the water. being used first for bringing supplies wood from the stump out of the woods In some cases where they went from into the woods and finally for hauling and over public roads to the mills. the stump to a mill, there would be 10 logs. At first they were used to tow This system eliminated much of the or even 20 miles. Lumber like spool bob sleds, but they were soon made river driving and materially reduced bars or birch bolts for spool bars was to carry a large load of lumber on the the time required to get timber from hauled long distances over roads with truck or trailer. the stump to the mill. In the ordinary quite heavy grades, both up and When the ground was frozen hard course of events under the river driv- down. before the snow came, satisfactory ing system, timber cut in the autumn The Holt tractor came into quite roads could be made by using and winter months would get to the general use, especially in yarding motorized snow plows to keep the mills in the next July or perhaps Au- logs from the stump and in moving snow covered roads smooth and gust. In an extreme case, when logs loaded sleds to the main road in mak- hard. These roads were satisfactory were taken out of the Aroostook River ing up loads for the log hauler. It was but available only in the winter and hauled overland to the Penob- used in some cases for hauling trains months, and sometimes when an scot, two years were required to get on the main road. The early Holt trac- open winter covered the swamps with the timber to market. Now it is quite tor had one feature which made it es- snow before they were frozen, they possible to deliver timber cut in that pecially adapted to rough ground. were not usable at all. region in the morning to the mill on the The tracks had a hinge in the middle An important factor in the transi- day it was cut. which permitted it to fit itself to ine- tion from log hauler to truck was the With this competition the log haul- qualities in the road, thus giving it ad- , a tractor with a blade or ers soon faded out of the picture and ditional traction. scraper which could be adjusted to the Lombard business folded up. The While the log hauler had greatly ex- any level and angle. Even the smaller company had made 83 log haulers in tended the distance that logs could be bulldozers could push their way all, most of which were used in Maine profitably hauled, it was itself limited through a dense woods, uprooting and . Three were in much the same way as were the trees and pushing them aside to leave shipped to Russia. horses. For obvious reasons the log a well graded road behind. The more Log haulers that were in town when hauler could not be operated on pub- powerful machines which were de- their work was done were nearly all lic roads and they could haul lumber veloped pushed through everything, cut up and sold for junk. Most of them direct to the mill or the railroad only leveling hills and brushing aside great were abandoned in the woods where- where a private road could be con- boulders. ever they happened to be and there structed. With trucks equipped for hauling they still stand, forgotten and inac- In some cases it was possible to gravel and power in the cessible. eliminate driving the smaller streams gravel pits a well graded dry truck One of the very few of the steam en- by hauling to deeper water, but for the gines that were preserved has been most part driving the timber to the restored to its original running condi- mills was still necessary. tion and is on exhibition in the Patten, While the log hauler was taking Maine, Lumberman’s Museum. over almost entirely the transport part

There were no brakes on a log hauler or on its train of sleds...nearly every road had its downgrade that made steerers pray that should they live this once more then they would find some other way to make a living.”— Yankee Magazine, March 1965. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Northern New England Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers gratefully acknowledges the efforts of all who cooperated on the designation of the Lombard Steam Log Hauler as a National Historic Mechan- Lumberman’s Museum, Inc. ical Engineering Landmark, particularly the officers and staff of the Donald Shorey, President Lumberman’s Museum. Darrell Jones, Vice President Michael Robinson, Treasurer The American Society of Mechanical Engineers Lenore Hanson, Secretary Dr. Serge Gratch, President Richard E. Elliott, Curator Dr. Donald N. Zwiep, Past President Emily Elliott, Co-Curator Dr. Burke E. Nelson, Executive Director Frank Peltier, Honorary and Past President Dr. Ernest B. Gardow, Vice President, Region I Robert F. Metcalf, Jr., Chairman, History & Heritage, Region I A total of 78 landmarks—State, Na- tional and International—have been The Northern New England Section designated by ASME since the pro- Russell L. Valentine, Chairman gram began in 1973. For a complete Jeffrey A. Schultz, Vice Chairman list and information about the ASME Craig A. Peverly History and Heritage program, Walter Cheever, Jr. please contact the ASME Public In- Jack W. Foster formation Department, 345 E. 47th John P. Zollo Street, New York, N.Y. 10017 (212) Donald Chamberlain, History & Heritage 705-7740.

The ASME National History & Heritage Committee The text of the commemorative bro- Dr. R. Carson Dalzell, Secretary chure is a reprint of the article, “The Prof. R. S. Hartenberg Log Haulers,” by Lore A. Rogers and Dr. J. Paul Hartman Caleb W. Scribner, former curators of Prof. Edwin T. Layton, Jr. the Lumberman’s Museum. The arti- Prof. Merritt Roe Smith cle first appeared in the August, 1967 Robert M. Vogel, Ex-officio, Smithsonian Institution issue of The Northern Logger.

NATIONAL HISTORIC MECHANICAL ENGINEERING LANDMARK LOMBARD STEAM LOG HAULER c. 1910 THIS STEAM CRAWLER-TRACTOR EMANCIPATED HORSES FROM THE KILLING WORK OF HAULING TRAINS OF SLEDS OVER ICED ROADS IN THE WINTER WOODS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA. DESIGNED, PATENTED (1901)‚ AND BUILT BY ALVIN C. LOM- BARD (1856-1937) OF WATERVILLE, MAINE, EIGHTY-THREE “LOMBARDS” WERE THE FIRST PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF THE OFTEN-TRIED LAG OR CRAWLER TREAD THAT WOULD BE- COME THE MARK OF THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE- DRIVEN AGRICULTURAL AND CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT AND MILITARY TANKS IN CURRENT USE. THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS—1982

American Society of Mechnical Engineers H079 345 East 47th Street New York, N.Y. 10017