logs jam at a corner or low spot on the riv- er bed. The law on floating lumber would not save the drive. There haven’t been ex- plicit special acts on the use of waters for a century and a half in Vermont. Today a log drive would just bring fines and injunctions by the Agency of Natural Resources or the Environmental Court.
Not so many years ago it was common to use the rivers and streams as leach lines. Towns regularly oiled the roads to keep them firm and control dust.54
There were
bounties on predatory animals, and little worry about extinction of species. We have changed. What was once normal is now un- acceptable. Log drives are now a subject of novels and tall tales.55
While once their op-
erators could do just about anything they pleased, in the name of commerce, today commerce must give way to nature. The trucks roll down our highways, carrying the timber to the mill. The rivers are now left to power production and recreation. An occa- sional tree floats down the river, unattend- ed.
____________________ Paul S. Gillies, Esq., is a partner in the Montpelier firm of Tarrant, Gillies, Merri- man & Richardson and is a regular contrib- utor to the Vermont Bar Journal.
____________________ 1
25 V.S.A. §§ 201-246. 2 25 V.S.A. § 241.
3 New England Trout & Salmon Club, Inc. v.
Mather, 68 Vt. 338, 344-345 (1896). See also Hunters, Anglers & Trappers Ass’n of Vermont, Inc. v. Winooski Valley Park Dist., 181 Vt. 12
(2006). 4
6
344-45. 5
New England Trout & Salmon Club, 68 Vt. at Miller v. Mann, 55 Vt. 475, 480 (1882).
State of Vermont v. State of New Hampshire, 290 U.S. 579 (1934), decree following opinion in
289 U.S. 593 (1933). 7
“An act granting a lottery for the purpose of
raising two thousand five hundred dollars to be applied for the purpose of clearing the chan- nel of the river Connecticut from Lebanon Falls to the North line of Massachusetts,” (Oct. 26,
EARL E. BROWN, COMMERCE ON EARLY AMERICAN WATERWAYS: THE TRANSPORT OF GOODS BY ARKS, RAFTS
1793), 15 STATE PAPERS OF VERMONT 198 (1967). 8
AND LOG DRIVES x-xi (2010). 9
207(1967, 1999). 10
ROBERT E. PIKE, TALL TREES AND TALL MEN AL BRADEN & CHELSEA REIFF GWYTHER, THE CON-
NECTICUT RIVER: A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY THROUGH
THE HEART OF NEW ENGLAND x (2009). 11
PIKE, supra note 9, at 236.
12 Braden & Gwyther, supra note 10, at x. 13 ALLEN FREEMAN DAVIS, POSTCARDS FROM VERMONT:
A SOCIAL HISTORY, 1905-1945 at 89 (2002). 14
JOHN SINTON, ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH, & CONNECTI- CUT RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL, THE CONNECTICUT RIV-
ER BOATING GUIDE: SOURCE TO SEA 63 (2007). 15
Aug. 1907, at 251. 16
At the Log Drivers’ Camp, THE VERMONTER, PIKE, supra note 9, at 197.
17 W.D. WETHERELL, THIS AMERICAN RIVER: FIVE CENTU-
RIES OF WRITING ABOUT THE CONNECTICUT 129 (2002). 18
www.vtfpr.org/util/for_ utilize_harvsumm.cfm. 19
PIKE, supra note 9, at 209. 20 “An act regulating fisheries,” Feb. 23, 1779, 16 THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • FALL 2011
www.vtbar.org
Vermont Sawlog and Veneer Log Har- vest—2009, Vt. Div. Forestry, available at http://
At Vermont Bar Association we believe our product is information to help each lawyer succeed. CLE programming is just one of the ways in which we deliver that information. One of the other modes of information delivery is Casemaker, your source for primary legal research. We now want to connect our CLE offerings to this resource. As you will see when you register, this new catalog allows for a real-time link between the course materials and all referenced cases, codes, statutes, and supplementary materials maintained in the Casemaker Library. The "Notes" area also allows you to record these references along with your thoughts at the time and email those notes to yourself for application to the work on your desk. We call this feature "CLE to Work" and think it will go a long way toward adding value to your CLE experience.
12 STATE PAPERS OF VERMONT 127-128 (Allen Soule
ed., 1964). 21
“An act against taking or destroying white pine or any other valuable timber,” March 8, 1784, 12 STATE PAPERS OF VERMONT 253 (John A. Williams ed., 1965). The following year the time for redemption of the logs was increased to nine months. “An act against taking or destroying white pine or any other valuable timber,” Oct. 27, 1785, 14 STATE PAPERS OF VERMONT 63 (John A.
Williams ed., 1966, ed.). 22
“An act against taking or destroying White- Pine, or any other valuable Timber,” Oct. 27, 1785, Laws of the State of Vermont Passed by the Legislation in February and March, 1787, at
155-157. 23
“An act to prevent falling tees into creeks and rivers,” March 9, 1787, 14 STATE PAPERS OF VER-
MONT 327-328. 24
Vt. Stat., § 4301, 1884, No. 90 (1894). 25 General Laws of Vermont, § 4879 (1918). 26 25 V.S.A. § 202. 27 25 V.S.A. § 203. 28 25 V.S.A. § 204. 29 25 V.S.A. § 205. 30 25 V.S.A. § 207. 31 25 V.S.A. § 201.
32 Records of the Vermont Council of Censors
298 (1991); “An act to provide for removing ob- structions in Nulhegan River,” Laws of 1832, No. 61, 115-116, and “An act to provide for remov- ing obstructions in the Passumpsic and Moose Rivers,” Laws of 1835, No. 90, 145; “An act to provide for removing obstructions in Paul’s
Stream,” Laws of 1839, No. 43, 91. 33
35 Coe v. Hall, 41 Vt. 325 (1868). 36
37
41 Vt. at 328. 41 Vt. at 327.
38 Dean v. McLean, 48 Vt. 412 (1875).
CASEMAKER CONNECT CATALOG
Council of Censors, supra note 32, at 406. 34 Id. at 407-408.
39
48 Vt. at 422.
40 State v. Bishop, 1
D.Chip. 120 (1797). 41 Carr v. Cornell, 4 Vt. 116 (1832).
42
now codified at 12 V.S.A. § 1601 43
44 Melendy v. Ames, 62 Vt. 14 (1890). 45
(1915). 48
Laws of 1852, No. 13, G.S. 36, R.L. § 1001; Goff v. Brainerd, 58 Vt. 468 (1886). 62 Vt. at 15.
46 Boville v. Dalton Paper Mills, 86 Vt. 305 (1912). 47 Boutwell v. Champlain Realty Co., 89 Vt. 80
89 Vt. at 82.
49 Champlain Realty Co. v. Town of Brattleboro, Id., 95 Vt. at 224.
95 Vt. 216 (1921). 50
51 Champlain Realty Co. v. Town of Brattleboro,
260 U.S. 366 (1922). 52
260 U.S. at 373. The case was taken up a sec- ond time by the Vermont Supreme Court after the decision was reversed. Champlain Realty re- covered the taxes improperly assessed. Cham- plain Realty Co. v. Town of Brattleboro, 97 Vt. 28
(1923). 53
(No. 2-231), 185 Vt. 447 (2009). 54
340 (1919). 55
In re Eustance Act 250 Jurisdiction Opinion Gilman v. Central Vermont Railway Co., 93 Vt. Howard Frank Mosher’s WHERE THE RIVERS FLOW
NORTH (1978) highlighted the decline of the log drive, and was made into a film by Jay Craven in 1993. The best stories of log drives are in Rob- ert E. Pike’s TALL TREES, TALL MEN, supra note 9. There he relates the story of an old logger who, “while pursuing a family of bears one day, some- how lost his false teeth. He shot the bears and got them home. Then he extracted the teeth of a bear cub and with a piece of haywire rigged himself a usable set of dentures and proceeded to eat the bear with its own teeth.” Id. at 96.
Ruminations: The Law of Log Drives
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