Sawmill plant 19th C

Hello all Your site was sugested to be by Harry at the Cool Springs site. I am doing reserch for a story set in 1850. The hero gets a job in a newish saw mill in PA. What I am trying to find out is what power would they be using? If it would be steam what type of plant and how difficult was it to stoke, maintain, etc. I am in England and the info on American indusry is hard to find. I apologies in advance for my poor spelling -I am dyslexic Katy -daughter and grandaughter of Enginers!

First, IMO you need not apologise for your disability, anymore than someone that has English as a second or third language should...just ignore those fools who get all hung up over grammar, punctuation and spelling and ignore the question.

Now to the heart of you question is what is possible or what is likely? Water power is quite possible, there were huge mills constructed that ran this way. Yes, steam is also a choice. A box bed engine or a beam engine would not have been out of the question. Either with a separate boiler which was hand fired on the sawmill slabs.

Stationary steam engines of the period were rather large and slow moving with ornate styling, sometimes almost a kinetic sculpture. Steam pressures were still low (about 30-50psi?).

The mill itself would (as a guess) likely be a huge bandsaw mill, but I don't have any real information on sawmills prior to about 1880.

There are others who know more than I, maybe they'd like to chime in and correct all my mistakes.

Almost forgot, I saw on display somewhere a bit of bandsaw blade from an 1840s-1850s era mill. The blade was almost 7" wide (overall) with 1-1/2" teeth, and pretty thick (1/4"?), so I assume the bandwheels, etc. must have been HUGE. You might try searching ebay for old pictures/books.

Thank you Allen This is what I needed to know. I have info on saw's 1840 was the cross over from up and down to Circuler saws. My hero is unlikly to spend any page time any place other than stoking the boiler though. I have had 'slab lumber' mentioned before. I take this to be lumber waste? Off cuts, miss-shapen bits, knots etc? I am told they also burnt saw dust. Thanks again for the info. Katy:-)

"slabs" are the cuts of the log useless for lumber, those with the bark, large voids, etc.

I don't think sawdust was used all that much to fire the boiler in the old days because it tended to go up the chimney and out as hot sparks, which could fire the whole mill. There were seperate sawdust burners later (how much later?) However, kindling a fire with planer chips , and bits of loose bark (and sometimes parafin oil) is still done today