''From Stump to Ship'' is an amateur industrial film by Alfred K. Ames, former State Senator and owner of the Machias Lumber Company, in

Machias, Maine Machias is a town in and the county seat of Washington County in Down East Maine, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 2,060. It is home to the University of Maine at Machias and Machias Valley Airport, a small publi ...

as well as by Dr. Howard Kane of Washington, DC. The half-hour 16mm film was shot over the winter of 1930 in the logging woods and shows logging in the forest with hand tools and horses, then moves to the spring log drive, with loggers using peaveys to break up

log jam A log jam is a naturally occurring phenomenon characterized by a dense accumulation of tree trunks and pieces of large wood across a vast section of a river, stream, or lake. ("Large wood" is commonly defined as pieces of wood more than in diame ...

s on icy rivers as the logs are moved from the forest to the mill. Detailed views of mill work, changing the bandsaw, and making shingles. Lumber is loaded onto schooners in Machias for transport to New York. The film was originally silent, with a typed script which Ames read aloud when he showed the film. In 1985, with funds from the

Maine Humanities Council The 'Maine Humanities Council (MHC) was founded in 1975 as a private nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It is one of 56 humanities councils in the United States and its territories. The MHC is also home of the Harrie ...

, the narration was recorded with the film. The film is distributed by Northeast Historic Film, in

Bucksport, Maine Bucksport is a historical town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. The population was 4,944 at the 2020 census. Bucksport is across the Penobscot River estuary from Fort Knox and the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, which replaced the Waldo– ...

. Footage was included in the compilation documentary ''Woodsmen and River Drivers, Another Day, Another Era'' which also interviewed the surviving woodsmen of the Machias Lumber Company. In 2002, the film was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

References

External links

*''From Stump to Ship'' essay by Karan Sheldon at National Film Registry

*''From Stump to Ship'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 175-17
''From Stump to Ship''
from the distributor, Northeast Historic Film in Bucksport, Maine.
"From Stump to Ship: Forgotten Film to the Formation of a Film Archives"
* 1930 films American documentary films United States National Film Registry films American black-and-white films 1930 documentary films Documentary films about Maine Black-and-white documentary films Sponsored films Films shot in Maine Logging in the United States Machias, Maine 1930s English-language films 1930s American films {{US-documentary-film-stub