Allegheny Lumber Company Account Book, PC.5325

PC.5325, Allegheny Lumber Company Account Book, Outer Banks History Center, Manteo, NC, U.S.A.

The Allegheny Lumber Company Account Book records the firm's daily expenses from 29 May 1899 to 24 August 1900. Each day's expense report lists the employees who worked that day in each section of the mill along with the number of hours that they worked. Work assignments include lumber sheds, logging, boat loading, railroad operating, mill repairs, tug and barge account, mill operating, railroad construction, and sundry. The first two pages of the account book appear to have been repurposed into a scrapbook containing magazine clippings about kewpies. The creator of these pages is unknown, but there are references throughout the volume to members of the Lane family, including Edwin Lane and Lettie Lane, that appear to have been added around the same time.

The Allegheny Lumber Company's North Carolina operation began as part of the Scranton Lumber Company, which was organized in Pennsylvania in 1889. After searching the South for timber lands in which to invest and expand, the company settled on the community of Clark in Hyde County, where investors established a lumber mill in late 1889-1891. With the mill came increased infrastructure and growth, including a post office, and the village was eventually renamed Scranton. The Scranton Lumber Company sold its Hyde County Holdings to the Allegheny Lumber Company in 1895. In addition to the mill in Scranton, the company also had offices in Belhaven. The president of the North Carlina operation was J.H. Steele. The mill was sold again in 1905 to the John L. Roper Lumber Company of Norfolk, Virginia. By this point, the timber industry in Hyde County had begun to decline, and Roper began selling off its holdings in 1907.

Donated by William A. Griffin, July 2021.