rafts

“This year occurred the “Great Freshet’ on the 11th and 12th of February. It rained all of two nights and part of the one day and carried away all the snow. The ground was frozen and the water ran into the streams, which rose rapidly, and carried away two stone piers and part of the body of Concord lower bridge, one wooden pier about two thirds of Concord upper bridge, all of Canterbury Bridge at Boscawen Plain, the new Republican bridge between Salisbury and  Sanbornton, Smith’s bridge at New Hampton, four bridges on the Contoocook River in Henniker, three in Warner and four in Weare. Immense quantities of timber which had been prepared and carried to the bank of the Merrimack were swept away by the flood, and it was equally destructive to other parts of the State. Timber at this time was drawn in winter upon the banks of the rivers, and in the spring fastened together in immense “rafts” or “shots’, and when the water was at a certain height or “pitch”,  these rafts-“shots”-were run by skilled men over Eastman’s, or Pemigewasset Great Falls, (at Franklin,) in the  Pemigewasset River , and Sewall’s Falls, in Concord , on the Merrimack. There were few man who had the , skill, strength and courage to run a raft of logs over Eastman’s or Pemigewasset Great Falls, in the river on the eastern boundary of the original town of Salisbury,” – from History of Salisbury by John J. Dearborn  1890