Sawyers Valley Saw Mill, Saw Pits and King Jarrah

Parent Place or Precinct

26283 King Jarrah, Sawmills and Sawpit

Child Places

• 04374 King Jarrah & Sawpit
• 04374 King Jarrah & Sawpit

Statement of Significance

MHI site 153 - The large jarrah tree and saw pit are important historically as a monument to the forest/timber industry that established the hills communities and the early days of the colony. It has very high social, historic and aesthetic significance for the Shire and the State as an illustration close to the city of what the early timber industry demanded of its workers. The size and scale of the tree has landscape significance and the potential to raise community awareness of the importance of our native forests environmentally and historically, illustrating the magnitude of what both the trees and the original forest must have been.

Physical Description

Former site of Sawyers Valley Saw Mill located north of the Saw Pits and King Jarrah Tree.

History

Sawyers Valley: Although timber tacks off the York Road were evident by the 1840s, the first scattered settlements of pit sawyers and shingle splitters were located in the Sawyers Valley area. The men tended to live in 'V' huts, a timber framed dirt floored shelter covered with either blackboy spines, reeds or paper bark, and with a mud fireplace or chimney. These huts and sawpits were located in the compacted gravel soils of the valleys. The large jarrah trees on the slopes above were felled and then moved down by jacks, wedges and manpower to rest on bearers above the pit. With one sawyer on top and one or two below, the logs were cut into lengths using hand held two metre saws. Amongst the group of sawyers in this area were ex-convicts Henry Howe, Henry Coles, and Lot Leather. They remained in the area as charcoal burners, providers of firewood for the Eastern Railway, and in Lot Leather's case, food and drink at his Sawyers Valley store and hotel.
For a 20 year period from the 1880s, the small scale sawyers were replaced by steam sawmills, and the first of these was E.G. Lacey's Enterprise Steam Sawmill. From 1st October 1882, he obtained a 14 year lease on 2,880 acres north of Sawyers Valley and spent 4000 pounds on equipment. The mill employed up to 25 men cutting sawn timber, firewood, and timber piles for the Fremantle jetty. Between 1884, and 1888, Lacey licensed sawyers to cut timber from designated Special Timber Areas. In 1888, following Lacey's bankruptcy, the mill was taken over by Alexander Forrest's Gill and Company. Under F.D. Good's management from the mid 1890s, until 1895, it employed up to 70 men cutting up to 180 loads of timber a week. After Alexander Forrest and Joe McDowell amalgamated their interests to form the Gill McDowell Jarrah Company Ltd, they operated the Sawyer's Valley mill until 1899.
In the area, another 30 men were employed in the Gem Saw Mill and the Federation Saw Mill. With the withdrawal of the larger companies the area reverted to small scale sleeper hewing and firewood cutting. From 1919, to 1922, the Perth Firewood Company operated a tramway south-east from Sawyers Valley using mainly Italian and Yugoslav woodcutters. Between 1949, and 1961, using a workforce with some European post war refugees ('displaced persons'), Robert Malcolm-Smith operated a saw mill in an area west of Sawyers Valley. The men and their families originally from the migrant camp at Northam were housed on the site, in small two roomed timber cottages.

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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