Heat and Light

The fuel for heating homes was wood or coal. Each year in late winter or early spring, depending on snow conditions, men headed for a woodlot to begin cutting firewood for the following season, using sharpened axes and a crosscut saw. Chain saws were a thing of the future. The logs were cut into eight-foot lengths and hauled home by horse and wood sleigh. There were always one or two men in the community who owned a portable bench saw, powered by a gasoline engine that turned the saw by means of a canvas belt, ten or twelve-feet long, and six or eight inches wide. In early March or April, for two or