Gallery 2 - Sense of belonging and taking roots into Greater Madawaska (1860-1960)
16. Drummond
O. B. Davis Mill (am_2338)
Oran Beecher Davis (1872-1960), was born at Simonds in Carleton County and lived in Grand Falls with
his wife Elizabeth Fraser. He was a Liberal member of the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly for
about thirty years. In 1914, he built a saw mill on Salmon River between Drummond and New Denmark.
He erected two locks: one near the mill and another several kilometres higher called the Dane's
lock. Near the mill, a village grew rapidly, including about thirty houses, a school, a store
belonging to the Davis Company and a big boarding house. Many men from Drummond and from the area
went up to the logging camps of the Davis Company and drove logs in the spring on the Salmon River.
Lacking wood, the sawmill closed its doors in 1952. Photo taken in 1920. Lent by Jean-Guy Plourde.
