Western Lakes & Mountains
10
The Coburn Brothers Of Maine’s North Woods The Ox Railroad at Northeast Carry by Charles Francis
O
ne of the first big timber companies in northwestern Maine was the Coburn Brothers Company. The holdings of this company were immense. Their lumber camps ranged from Jackman on the Quebec border, to Holeb in the Moose River region, to Brassua Lake in the Greenville area. In fact, Moosehead was one of the company’s chief centers of operation. The Coburns even had a steamship line there, the Coburn Steamship Company, which included the famous steamship Katahdin.
Abner and Philander Coburn operated the Coburn Brothers Company. Abner is better known, as he was one of Maine’s Civil War-time governors. He was also the executive head of the company, taking care of the management end of things from the home office in Skowhegan. Philander was more the company’s man in the field, seeing to such details as to whether camps were running up to snuff, schedules were being met and so on. It was Philander who was largely responsible for the creation of one of the most unique
pieces of early north woods history, the Ox Railroad at Northeast Carry at the head of Moosehead. Philander and Abner Coburn were the sons of Eleazer Coburn, who for many years was Maine State Timber Surveyor. The elder Coburn probably knew the value of state-owned timberlands better than anyone else in Maine, and, because of this, he and his sons were able to join the ranks of Maine’s great timber barons. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, the State of Maine found itself in dire
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