Entry From "Tracks in The Snow"
A book written by: Merle Dickinson

The big woods were located in Norwich and Sergeant Townships. It was a tract of virgin timber owned by the Butterfield family of England. Father sort of looked after the tract for the Butterfields and at one time Louie Butterfield, one of the owners, visited the tract to look it over. This was probably in the 1880’s. He gave father a silver watch on this visit and father carried it to the day he died. I was an enormous watch and father had a gold chain, which had a gold-tipped bears claw as a fob, and he carried the watch in a vest pocket and the chain and fob draped across the front of the vest.

This tract of timber covered thousands of acres of group and was a sight to see. It stood mostly to hemlock and the top of the ridges sometimes stood to hardwood. There were many places in the hemlock that probably sunlight had never shown for a century, the enormous tops of the hemlocks shutting out all rays of the sun. It was like an enormous cathedral, quiet and ethereal. The streams ran clear, sparkling water and brook trout abound in them, and in places where the hemlocks grew down to the brooks and the canopy covered everything overhead, a brook trout caught in those places was black on the back and the spots on the trout and the fins were vivid red. They were beautiful fish and in those days there were no daily limits on the catch.

This was passenger pigeon nesting grounds and millions of them nested in the big woods on certain years when the beech trees on the ridges had had a great crop of beechnuts the previous fall. The pigeons always nested in northwestern Pennsylvania on even numbered years and always after the previous fall had shown big crops of beechnuts. They did not nest every even numbered year so the plentiful beechnut crop must have had something to do with their nesting. These nestings covered hundreds of acres, the last one being three miles wide and forty miles long. This nesting was in 1886.

The only roads through the big woods were trails from Norwich Corners to Emporium, another trail led from the Norwich Road up parker Brook and came our near Teutonia (now Clermont) and on through to Wilcox and a third trail ran from the Norwich Road east from Norwich Corners and connected with the Sinnemahoning Trail at Gardeau. All These trails were dirt trails through the wilderness just wide enough fro vehicles hauled by oxen. So the big woods were quite an isolated place.

There was a very dry spring in the year 1930 and a forest fire started in the West Branch and this fire fed by the old t – of hemlocks, still unrotted and other debris on the ground swept thousands of acres before it was controlled further adding to the desolation of the big woods. The fire started in the West Branch and ran down the valley toward Betula and up the valley toward Clermont and Wellendorf and destroyed everything in its path. Fortunately, the burned tract was not inhabited, but a few camps burned and the fire roared down the West Branch Valley in a matter of hours.

Anyone that ever saw the big woods or who ever walked in them will never forget the majesty of a virgin forest. Some of the hemlocks stood when Columbus discovered America. It was a sight to be indelibly engraved in one’s mind, nature at its best, and in the few years that the towns were in operation, the scene changed to one of utter desolation.

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The Miner, published at Smethport says that the Goodyear's will begin operations at the head of Potato Creek in Mckean county early next spring, both cutting lumber and peeling bark, starting to cut down the 20,000 acres of virgin forest, which has long been the sportsmen's paradise.

To further the work the Buffalo & Susquehanna railroad is being extended through from Liberty to the scene of future activities and as soon as this is done next spring work will begin in earnest and the ring of the woodsman's ax will be a familiar sound in that quiet region.  The start will be made at the iron bridge over the East branch on the Emporium road near "Fiddler's Green" and this is the present objective point of the railroad will construct houses for its employees and families, stores will be built, the lumber companies will have offices there and a thriving community will spring up as if by magic.

The town will be the headquarters for both the railroad and the lumber company, the base of supplies and the rendezvous of the hundreds of men to be employed.  Cutting and peeling will be started in the woods surrounding the new town and the product will be taken to the big Goodyear Mill at Austin, Pa.. by railroad where it will be sawed up -- all other products from this tract will also be manufactured at Austin, it is understood.

As the scene of the activities move away from the town railroad will be extended out but the town will continue to be headquarters of all operations.

The job will consume at least ten years in the cutting and chances are that the new place will become a permanent town,

The cutting of this timber will circulate a lot of money in this vicinity and give employment to hundreds of men, but at the same time it will give a feeling of regret to all who have ever seen this beautiful region to contemplate its destruction.

The Younglove Bros. have one small mill in operation at present and are building another on the East Branch and are cutting out small timber which the are making up into handles, etc.

The cutting of this tract, the last of its kind in McKean county, recalls the busy days of Norwich in years gone by that town was a thriving business center, its activities all centering around the task of clearing that vast tract of virgin timber surrounding it.  Now, scarcely a trace remains of this once busy tow.  Trailing vines and wild growth of all kinds have covered the spots where once stood homes and business places.  Norwich exists only in memory.