Day is located between Edinburg
and Conklingville on the north shore of the Great Sacandaga.
When the town was officially established in 1819 it was
named Concord but then changed to Day in honor of Eliphaz
Day who was it’s first supervisor . He was a lumber
dealer and a guiding force in the community. Day actually
existed as two areas Day Center and West Day. West Day
was originally called Huntsville after a tavern owner
there. The first settlers came in 1797. Most people worked
in lumber and general farming. Creeks that run through
Day into the Sacandaga are Glasshouse, Paul, Allen, Dailey,
and Sand..
Evidence of Native Americans were
found frequently in Day. Spearheads clay pipes and stone
pots to name a few . West Day had 20 houses, a store,
a blacksmith, a schoolhouse, and two churches. A wooden
ware shop was built there in 1859 but was turned into
a clothespin factory and sawmill. By the end of 1925
most of the dwellings and mills had been destroyed in
anticipation of the flood. Very few were moved.
Logging was the major industry in
the valley since the river was large enough to accommodate
huge trees. Timber harvested included pine, oak, rock
maple, cherry, but none were more important than the
hemlock. Hemlock trees provided ruffled grouse, wild
turkey and songbirds food (seeds) and shelter in this
tree. Deer browse it heavily when deep snow makes other
food scarce. Hemlock were highly demanded due to the
properties it’s bark held for tanning leather.
Tanneries were established farther south of the river.
Besides over harvesting of the hemlock due to the demand
the species is currently under threat due to the hemlock “woolly
adelgid” a bug that extracts the sap from the tree.
This insect was accidentally introduced from East Asia
to the United States in 1924.
Log driving is a means of log transport
which makes use of a river's current by letting the current
move floating tree trunks downstream to sawmills. When
the first sawmills were established, they usually were
small and were established in the forest in temporary
facilities, then moved to new areas as the timber was
exhausted. Later, bigger mills were developed that were
not portable, and these were usually established in the
lower reaches of a river, with the logs brought to them
by floating downriver by log drivers.
To ensure that logs drifted freely
along the river, men were needed to guide the logs, called "log
drivers". This was an exceedingly dangerous occupation,
with the drivers standing on the moving logs and running
from one to another. When one caught on an obstacle and
formed a logjam, someone had to free the offending log.
This required some understanding of physics, strong muscles,
and extreme agility. Many log drivers lost their limbs
and their lives by falling and being crushed by the logs.
On small tributaries logs could
only be driven during the spring flood, when thousands
of logs, cut during the winter months, were sent downriver.
Each timber firm had its own mark which was placed on
the logs. Removing or altering a timber mark was a crime.
At the mill the logs were captured by a log boom and
the logs were sorted for ownership before being sawn.
Log driving became unnecessary with
the advent of the railroad and good public roads for
trucks.
