river driven.
/ˈrɪvə ˌdrʌɪv/, U.S. /ˈrɪvər ˌdraɪv/ North American.
The action or an act of gathering and driving floating logs down a river to a sawmill. Cf. drive n. 1.
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the world > food and drink > farming > forestry or arboriculture > lumbering > [noun] > transport of logs
flume1784
log-rollinga1792
drive1835
river-driving1843
river drive1845
sluice-way1851
sacking1860
timber drivea1861
skidding1877
log-running1878
skid road1880
rigging1897
swamping1902
log-drivea1904
high lead1905
high-lining1919
1845 Amer. Rev. Sept. 265/1 At certain fixed points..the timber is stopped by a boom, until each branch of the river above has completed its contribution; and then the entire mass is again let loose, and the combined gangs accompany it in its course. This is what's called a river-drive.
1889 Seventh Ann. Rep. Prov. Board of Health Ont. 1888 p. xxxv The men from the shanties and river-drives would have a place to go to for treatment, and the charges could be made upon the companies.
1902 Atlantic Monthly Mar. 326/1 Ice had just broken in the Upper Moccasin, and the river drives were on. The men..were about to start their logs.
1937 C. M. Wilson Aroostook 105 The ‘river-drives’ were the consummation of turning out the timber.
1995 Thunder Bay: 25 Great Years 20/2 In the 1930s, '40s and early '50s horses and sleighs hauled logs to the river. And then the long, slow river drive began.
2006 D. Lee Lumber Kings & Shantymen iv. 77 Some sawlogs, having spent more than a year in the water (on the river drive and in the mill pond), were already partially seasoned on arriving at the saw.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1845