NEW - Fall 2001

Lumber Queen by Ellen C. Anderson 2001 - ISBN 189386301-8 Paperback, 152 pages, $16

A biography of an extraordinary woodswoman, Ruth Ayer Park. Ruth Park was a tough New Hampshire Yankee who graduated from Vassar College in 1906 and then became a logging boss. The Park family business had fallen on hard times, and Ruth alone of the Park children was free to help. Unschooled in business, but with a quick mind, sense of humor, and a head for numbers, she took on the challenge and became a colorful legend in her own time.

"[Ruth Park] merits special attention because she was the only lady logger in the United States who swung an axe, handled a cant-dog, drove team, and ran her own camps. That well-known lumberjack Sherman Adams can testify that she was a hard woman to beat. I remember a song about her, the first line of which goes: 'There's a lumbering lady in Lyme. . .' "

-From Tall Trees, Tough Men by Robert E. Pike