It is well known that the Lansdowne area was a productive timber area of the Manning Valley. Many sawmills were located throughout the valley. Timber was logged in the upper reaches of the valley and logs were then taken down to the village of Lansdowne where they were loaded onto ships at Lansdowne wharf and transported to Sydney.
In the earlier years there were a number of bullock teams working in the area including Frank Carmady, Reg Carmady, Clarence Carmady, Les Doyle, Athol Carmady, F Stace, Burns.
It appears that the first sawmill in Upper Lansdowne was started in 1898 by Dominico Cicolini. The 8 horse boiler was brought by Mr A J Payne from Johns River. In August 1898 the mill was receiving large orders daily from Sydney firms (principally beech). By 1905 the mill was also manufacturing broom handles.
In 1901 Hadley and Co erected a sawmill in Upper Lansdowne. This sawmill was later sold to John Potts and the Unger brothers.
In 1907 George Schubert purchased a sawmill from Boots and Unger in partnership with his sons – It is understood that this was located on Koppin Yarratt Road across the bridge below the hall. This was used for the cutting of building timber and broom handles. There were 2 sawmills manufacturing broom handles in 1907. They were Cicolini and Schubert respectively.
In 1911 it was reported that a new sawmill just above Koppin Yarratt school was well on the way towards completion. This may have been the Steinmetz mill.
In 1920 Tom McLaughlin also erected a sawmill at Upper Lansdowne and this mill was completely destroyed by fire in September 1926.
In 1925 Schubert Bros cut some fine cedar for the new Memorial Hall. Schubert later sold the sawmill in about 1927 to Mr Jack T McLaughlin. At the time of purchase, this was the only sawmill still in operation in the Upper Lansdowne area. This sawmill burned down in about 1933.
2 mills on Coxcomb Road were owned by Mr Baulman and Mr Jim McLaughlin.
Once the Koppin Yarratt Road opened through to Comboyne, sawn timber and mill logs were carried to the mills in the Lansdowne area.
By 1926 log lorries were being used to take logs to the mills. Cecil Bartlett, Russ Avery, George Saville and Laurie Bartlett to name a few.
Lance and Wally Tyrie built and operated a sawmill from May 1948 on the original farm at 696 Upper Lansdowne Road. Logs came from the 100 acre block across the road and were snigged back to the sawmill. They also brought in logs for milling.
Merv Berry’s sawmill was located in Barlin’s Lane just off the Central Lansdowne Road. He started operations in July 1974. He then transferred his sawmill licence to the Comboyne mountains in 1985.
Extract taken from ‘Together in this Jungle Scrub’
By Helen Hannah
Lawrence James (Paddy) Doyle worked with his brother as a bullocky around Comboyne. He replied by mail to a list of questions I had asked him:
I went to drive for a chap named Bert Cooper on the Bulga. I was about 18 years of age. I stayed with Cooper for about 2 years. He had a fairly large team, 22 bullocks. Timber was in plenty in those days, plenty of Black Butt. I came back home when I finished working there. Mum and Dad were dead and my brother Tom and I worked a team on shares. That was when we started hauling logs on the Comboyne Mountain. When Tom saw that I could handle the team very well, most of the driving was left to me. Tom would ride the horse ahead of the team and have the log cut and ready to haul when I arrived with the team.
We used to take the team 8 to 10 miles up the Comboyne Mountain, yoking them up about 6 am and returning home about 7 pm. But if we had trouble in the bush, it would be 9 or 10 pm. We had a large team, 24 bullocks. We hauled our logs back to Upper Lansdowne mills, namely Schubert’s Mill and Tom McLaughlin’s Mill. We were hauling all round Comboyne for five years from about 1925 to 1930.
My brother and I often had to camp at Comboyne. We had our favourite places to camp and shelter. We would just sit by the camp fire, and when we were tired we just rolled over. If it rained we would sleep in our oilskin coats.
Most of our bullocks were reared on our property. We also bought calves from Uncle Hugh Doyle who had a property next to my father. We trained our own bullocks, and this is very important, as the bullocks are always very close to the trainer.