Compare the map above from 1928 with
THIS MAP from 1958. Note that "Back" bay has disappeared! (PS - click on the icon to enlarge both maps after they download and then scroll down).
Here is an image of Front Bay completely filled with logs and Back Bay not yet filled in. The pink highlight indicates the route of the railroad tracks.
Clow's Sawmill was located somewhere in the vicinity of 51 Mill Street - the former Love's Quay. They manufactured boxes and oaken handles.
Another shot of the bay completely filled with logs.
Berry's Mill was located up closer to Wolfeboro Falls. Excelsior was made from the waste created from the manufacture of other products. It was used as a shipping material inside boxes. Excelsior, once a common product used to pack fragile items for shipping in wooden boxes, and also used for filling in mattresses, is not seen much today. Excelsior is a shredded wood product made from poplar or other soft woods. It comes from the machines like coarse wool in various sizes. Today, excelsior has largely been replaced by foam and plastic products, but it is still used to make pads for the bottom of cartons in which day old chicks are shipped. After excelsior had been shaved off the remnant sticks of poplar, they were sold to local housewives years ago for kindling wood at $4.00 per dumpcart load. This was sixty years ago when woodstoves were in common use. Two excelsior mills were operated at Wolfeboro Falls. The Hutchins mill started around 1885 - employed 15 men and turned out four or five carloads of baled excelsior a week. The Berry mill came into operation in 1900 and produced several carloads of excelsior per week. Both mills used water power from Smith River. Until 1980 the Berry mill made excelsior pads. The Hutchins mill now produces Damart, the insulating material for under-clothing used by winter sports enthusiasts.
Postcard of a sawmill on the Smith's River which leads from Crescent Lake and Lake Wentworth (formerly called Smith's Pond) to the Front Bay.
