History
Early History
The headwaters of the Lumber flow from streams in Montgomery, Moore, Hoke, Scotland and Richmond Counties, forming Drowning and Naked Creeks. Some say it is from the confluence of these two creeks that the river has its origin. A review of USGS topographical maps shows the named Lumber River beginning further south and east in the area of the confluence of Drowning Creek with Watery Branch from Scotland County and Buffalo Creek from Hoke County. The Lumber flows into South Carolina until it merges with the Little Pee Dee River which in turn merges with the Great Pee Dee and Waccamaw Rivers, flows into Winyah Bay where it is joined by the Black and Sampit Rivers at Georgetown, SC, and then into the Atlantic Ocean. Winyah Bay is the third largest estuary on the east coast following the Chesapeake Bay of Maryland and Virginia, and the Pamlico Sound of North Carolina.
Early habitation of the Lumber River basin by indigenous people is confirmed by artifacts found throughout Southeastern N.C. In 1984, a yellow pine dugout canoe measuring over 16 feet in length was found by diver Paul Valenti in the river beneath the former McNeill steel bridge on the west side of Lumberton. It is on display in the University of North Carolina's Native American Museum in the Old Main Building on campus. The museum states "The radio-carbon date is around 930 A.D. Fire and sharp shells were used to hollow out the canoe." Also on display in the museum are collections of stone tools, projectile points and clay vessel fragments.
Examples of Dr. John Bowman's collections of arrow and spear points, and pottery shards discovered in Robeson and Hoke Counties. Several clovis points dating to approximately 10,000-12,000 years ago are shown in the upper left (2 quartz points on the black square).
Commercial Uses
Comprising one of the largest forest ecosystems in North America, the 92 million acres of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) that grew between Southeastern Virginia and Eastern Texas in colonial times provided a valuable natural resource for a young nation with limitless ambition and boundless energy. Those forests were exploited for any and everything that could be rendered from wood: lumber for building, medicines (turpentine), masts and naval stores for ships, furniture, toothpicks and fishing rods. By the late 1990s the total acreage came in around 3 million (5.4million in 2024), of which 12,000 acres were estimated to be original, old-growth trees. The clearings were vast and far exceeded clear-cutting in the Amazon rainforest as a percentage of total acreage. (Earley 2)
Mechanization with steam powered engines allowed for accelerated harvesting of timber. Tramways that extended into the forests brought out logs that were either hauled to sawmills or dumped into canals, dug by dredges, that lead to the main stem of the river. Northern investors had found a timber bonanza in Southeastern N.C.
Relic tramway pier near the Net Hole area of Lumber River and Big Swamp.
Where once logs were assembled into loose rafts and floated down river, by the late 19th century transport on railcars was also employed. Early accounts speak of loggers floating their rafts great distances and walking home with their earnings. Keeping the river open for navigation was always important for transport of people and goods.
One enterprise, Butters Lumber Company, brought industrial scale operations to the area "and sawed more than one million board feet of lumber a month". Richard Gould Peters and Horace Ulysses Butters are described as independently wealthy partners in the Butters, Peters and Company in a time line prepared by Henry Singletary in March, 2022. In 1887 they bought 26,145 acres in Big Swamp from "Octavius Harvey Blocker of Maxton and investors, George Smith and William N. Jennings of Pennsylvania". The tract extended from Boardman to above Tolarsville east of St. Pauls. It is possible there were cypress trees there that rivaled the 2,000+ year-old sentinels along the Black River in N.C. (See "Counting Rings" in the July-August 2023 issue of Wildlife in N.C., Volume 87, Number 4)
Early Designations
Efforts to recognize one notable feature of the river dated to 1809 when the N.C. General Assembly passed a bill to rename the lower portion of Drowning Creek the Lumber River owing to the vast stands of marketable timber in the region.
In 1978, the section of Upper Lumber River bordering Scotland, Hoke and Robeson Counties from U.S. 15-501 to N.C. 71 near Maxton was recognized as the state’s first Water Trail, and then in 1981 as the first National Canoe Trail in the Southeastern United States. On March 7, 1981, the Sixth Annual Indian Unity Conference passed a resolution that sought to include the Lumber River in the North Carolina Natural and Scenic Rivers System. On Wednesday, May 16, 1984, the lower portion of the river from N.C. 71 to Fair Bluff was named the Lower Lumber River Recreation Trail. Bill Scott of Laurinburg, David and Donna Scott (no relation to Bill) of Fair Bluff and Sherwood Hinson of Fairmont led canoe trips and were spirited advocates for the trail.