Horse Pull, photograph by Isaac Simpson, ca. 1910. Maine State Museum. Gift of Jim Thompson, 2017.24.213.
Horse Pull, photograph by Isaac Simpson, ca. 1910. Maine State Museum. Gift of Jim Thompson, 2017.24.213.
Lumbermen used oxen to drag sleds full of logs out of the woods. After 1890, horses pulling sleds, such as those seen in this photograph, replaced oxen.
As noted in Maine's Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics in 1899: "With the pair of horses and wagon-sled in use today, a man can do as much work as one could do then with a bob-sled and eight oxen." The report noted that the slow pace of the oxen set the pace of the work crew.