Bartlett Land & Lumber Company Research Project

The Bartlett Land & Lumber Company and its subsidiary the Bartlett & Albany Railroad was owned by Frank George and C.F. Buffum, both from Bartlett, along with Charles and Horatio Jose, of Portland, ME.

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According to Aileen Carroll’s book, Bartlett, New Hampshire … in the valley of the Saco, in 1873, the lumber company began acquiring tracts of land on Bear Mountain and Mount Tremont. This land abutted acreage owned by the Livermore logging operation and would eventually lead to a boundary dispute that ended up in the United States Supreme Court for resolution.

 

Aside from the main mill located on “Company Hill,” smaller mills that were part of the BL&LC mill were located along the tracks of the Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad. (Company Hill was located on the upper section of today’s Albany Avenue heading up the road toward the winter gate; after the gate, the road is then known as Bear Notch Road.) The mill operated until 1894 when the properties and railroad were sold to Otis Smith of Cambridge, MA and Herbert Blanchard of Concord, MA. Today, the land of the main mill is privately owned.

 

A recent exploration by BHS member, David Atchason, and Phil Franklin located the mill site. They found that aside from a few remnants of the mill most of it has blended back into the forest. BHS has very little historical information on the Bartlett Land & Lumber Company. Scotty Mallett, our BHS railroad historian and member of the BHS Board of Directors has launched an effort to dig into the history of this company, once the largest employer in town.

 

We have an artifact from the site of the main mill and maps that show the layout of the mill but beyond that and what the Carroll book relates, we have a blank page that needs to be filled. How Can You Help? We are in search of any paper documentation or records from the mill, photographs of the mill operation, lists of employees, information on the smaller mill sites, family stories of relatives who worked at the mill and more information on the Supreme Court case with the Livermore logging operation. If you have artifacts from the mill or other historical information, we’d welcome that as well. If you can help and information to deepen our knowledge of the mill, please contact either Scotty Mallett at ScottyMallett@gmail.com or 603-383-3040 or Phil Franklin at Phil@BartlettHistory.org.