The Sawyer River Railroad was a lumber railroad that operated along the

Sawyer River The Sawyer River is a river in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in the United States. It is a tributary of the Saco River, which flows to the Atlantic Ocean in Maine. The Sawyer River rises in the unincorporated township of Livermore, New Ha ...

Livermore, New Hampshire Livermore is an unincorporated civil township and ghost town in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. It was briefly inhabited as a logging town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The site of the former village is about west of No ...

from 1877 until 1928, when all rail traffic ceased. By comparison with other logging roads of the day in the White Mountains, this was a small one, running only eight or so miles up the narrow valley of the Sawyer River above Bartlett at the south end of

Crawford Notch Crawford Notch is a major pass through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, located in Hart's Location. Roughly half of that town is contained in Crawford Notch State Park. The high point of the notch, at approximately above sea level, is at ...

. It connected to the

Portland and Ogdensburg Railway The Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad was a railroad planned to connect Portland, Maine to Ogdensburg, New York. The plan failed, and in 1880 the Vermont section was reorganized and leased by the Boston & Lowell Railroad. In 1886, the Maine and Ne ...

below Crawford Notch.

History

The Sawyer River Railroad was chartered by the Saunders family in 1875. The Saunders owned the vast

old-growth forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

in the

valley, and had just founded the new village of Livermore with a large

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

. The railway bought its first locomotive new in late 1876. Construction began in 1877, beginning with the 2 miles between Livermore and the

. The railway was expanded into the woods beginning in 1880 to bring fresh cut logs to the mill. The railway never had a passenger car, but Livermore's residents would ride on the locomotive's slopeback tender. As was typical for logging railways of the era, the construction was cheap and accidents were frequent. The lone locomotive on the line suffered 33 derailments and repeatedly needed a new cab or a new tender. In 1920, an especially bad fall into the river occurred and the locomotive was replaced. The railway lasted a long time for a logging line, until a major flood destroyed all but 4 miles in 1927. By that time, the valley had been heavily logged out anyway. All rail traffic ceased in 1928. The railway was disassembled in the mid 1930s by the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...

Locomotives

References

Defunct New Hampshire railroads Logging railroads in the United States {{US-rail-company-stub