Emporium Lumber Company Records

The Emporium Lumber Company papers were obtained in 1972 from the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, New York. This collection is only a portion of the original Emporium Lumber Company papers housed at the Museum. Other Emporium papers, those dealing with the company's Adirondack operations, remain at the museum and a third portion has been transferred to repositories in Pennsylvania. (An inventory of the Adirondack Museum's Emporium collection is filed in the inventory folder in Carton 1 of this collection).

The Papers pertain to the company's Vermont logging operations and the selling off of its Vermont land holdings.

Emporium's Danby office reported mainly to the Conifer and Cranberry Lake headquarters of Emporium Forestry Company. The collection begins however in the pre-Emporium Forestry days and it ends well beyond the date of the Emporium Forestry's dissolution. The name of the parent company has therefore been retained as the collection name.

The Emporium Lumber Company Papers consist of 7 cubic feet of company correspondence, financial and legal papers, printed matter and survey maps. It is arranged into 11 series.

Series I - General Correspondence contains letters between George and Clyde Sykes at Conifer and Nelson C. Nichols and E.L. Staples in Vermont on the one hand, and letters betweeen the Conifer office and William L. Sykes and Evan J. Jones in Pennsylvania or New York on the other. There are also letters to and from various pulp and paper companies such as International Paper and St. Regis Paper, to and from surveyors and timber cruisers, and to and from attorneys, notably Marvelle C. Webber of Rutland, VT. This series is arranged chronologically.

Series II Subject Files consists of five subgroupings:

1. U.S. Forest Service - Green Mountain Land Purchase is composed of correspondence between Emporium Forestry and U.S. Forest Supervisors Otto Koenig, G.S. Wheeler and Paul S. Newcomb, and between the company and various attorneys. There are also special files within this subgroup regarding specific property matters or containing legal papers, deeds, etc. This series is arranged by type, correspondence is arranged chronologically. (Note: some of the correspondence in Series I refers among other matters to the Green Mountain purchase).

2. Vermont Water Power consists of letters between the Sykes brothers and Barker & Wheeler, Engineers of New York State, and Neil S. Reilly of Danby, Vermont, specifically at Long Hole, the Old Job, and the Black Branch of Otter Creek. Also included are some deeds and a report on the Big Branch project by Irving Frost. This material is arranged chronologically. The deeds and reports are foldered individually (see inventoy below).

3. Vermont Timberland Owners' Association consists of correspondence between Emporium Forestry Company and the VTOA, 1917-1967, and of reports, minutes of meetings and miscellaneous VTOA related materials. This group is arranged by type.

4. Griffith Estate consists of letters and legal and financial materials between the company and various members of the Griffith family, notably Katherine T. Griffith, the executors of the Griffith Estate and the Baxter National Bank of Rutland.

5. Bellows Falls Ice Company consists of correspondence between H.A. Hatch of Bellows Falls Ice and Emporium Forestry Company regarding spruce cutting at Griffith Lake.

Series III - Subject Files, Property Miscellaneous concerns individual or corporate property matters, most often land sales by Emporium Forestry Company, and it consists of letters and accompanying deeds. It is arranged by person or organization with whom the deal was made and is arranged alphabetically (see inventory below for individual listing).

Series IV - Subject Files, Company Miscellaneous contains scattered folders from the Conifer office: product or service inquiries and price quotations, letters regarding rail shipments and other material. This series is arranged by type.

Series V - Deeds: The deeds in this series reach back to the mid-19th century and to Silas Griffith's original land purchases; they are for the most part arranged by town. A section of this series is Company Copies (?) - deeds that were possibly copies for office filing at Conifer or Danby. There are also New York and other non-Vermont deeds in the series along with bound title abstracts for Peru, Stratton, Sunderland and Glastenbury, VT.

Seies VI - Miscellaneous Legal and Financial Papers is a small series consisting of ledger sheets, scattered receipts and bills, and some leases. It is arranged by type (see inventory for individual listing).

Series VII - Survey Reports reflects the various timber cruises and surveys of the company's Vermont holdings made during the years 1950-1959. These are listed by name of the individual cruiser or lumber consulting firm. Minutes and memos often containing rough cruise reports, land lists and descriptions and rough estimates of timber and timber values are also contained in this series.

Series VIII - Tax Materials consists of 19 folders of tax notices, forms, and miscellaneous correspondence between town listers and the company. It is arranged by town or by type of tax material, such as Vermont corporation tax, tax inventories, etc.

Series IX - Photographs contains six photos and a few unidentified negatives. The photos are listed individually in the inventory.

Series X - Printed Matter consists mainly of town reports of the Vermont towns in which Emporium Forestry Company had holdings. Other items such as Vermont related publications, articles about Emporium Lumber Company and newspaper clippings are included.

Series XI - Maps contains mostly survey maps of the company's Vermont lands. Many of them are duplicated. They are arranged by town and by type, i.e., Vermont Water Power, Green Mountain National Forest, etc. There are also a few geological survey maps, maps of the New England states and some unidentified maps. They are listed in the inventory below.