Published in the January 6, 2021 edition.

By HELEN BREEN

LYNNFIELD — Frank J. D. Barnjum, born in Montreal in 1858, began his career there as a stock boy at the age of 13.

After immigrating to Boston and engaging in the tanning trade, he purchased a “bankrupt horse farm” in Lynnfield Centre. Known as the “Wilkes Farm,” the property was located directly across from the present Center Village on Main Street.

Meanwhile Barnjum, at age 22, had married Bostonian Bertha Clement, 18, in 1879 and became an American citizen a few years later. In the late 1880s, Frank built an imposing Victorian home for his family at 60 Summer St., across from Town Hall. There they raised their six children, one son and five daughters. Although Town Reports record his occupation as “horse dealer” and “stock farmer,” the shrewd newcomer soon realized that his land was ripe for residential development and began to buy up many other parcels throughout Lynnfield.

According to the town’s tax receipts, Barnjum’s real estate was assessed at $79.60 in 1890. Of the nearly 400 Lynnfield tax payers that year, only eight were taxed higher, including several “early settlers” like the Cox, Danforth and Newhall families. His holdings were scattered all over town.

One of his major schemes was to develop summer properties around Pillings Pond off Summer Street. Survey plans in 1890 show Highland Avenue, Prospect Avenue and Crescent Avenue in a proposed enclave he called “Lakefield Park, Pillings Pond.” These lots were purchased and “summer camps” were built over time, but by then, Barnjum had moved on to loftier pursuits.

“The Lumber King”

Financed by his success in land speculation, Barnjum invested in the lumber business and bought up large tracts of forest in Maine and Eastern Canada. He soon took up the cause of woodland management earning the moniker “Canada’s Forest Conservation Crusader.” He published “innumerable letters and pamphlets” on the subject, and offered substantial prizes for essays on efficient forestry, fire prevention, and control of pests like the borer and bark beetle.

Nevertheless, Barnjum’s conservation agenda often had a dimension of self-aggrandizement. For example, he encouraged the Canadian government to oppose the export of pulpwood to the United States. Such a policy would be most advantageous to his business interests in Maine. He was described by one observer as “an opportunist par excellence.” Another Canadian competitor lampooned him as a “snake oil salesman.”

His labyrinthine business initiatives, along with his conservation agenda, took Barnjum all over the world. In his late 60s, he purchased over 2,000-square miles of forest in British Columbia before it was “too late.” These holdings would form the “Barnjum Forest Trust.” Yet, according to one source, “unbeknownst to the public, the trust was actually a limited company, cannily organized so that all its shares” were held by his heirs. In one account, Bertha was referred to as his “estranged wife.”

Obviously, Barnjum spent little time in Lynnfield although the family maintained its home on Summer Street. The clan also resided at their estate in Kingfield, Maine, which is the site of the present Sugarloaf ski resort, where Barnjum was active in the lumber business.

An academic inquiry

Using available resources, I wrote the above account of Barnjum’s career in a now defunct Lynnfield newspaper, published in July 2017. I noticed that most of what I had read about our hero had a negative slant. Then, in mid- November 2020, I received an email from Mark Kuhlberg, a professor of history at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. He wrote:

“I am working on a revisionist piece on Barnjum. Historians dismissed him as a mostly self-interested propagandist and ignored much of the truth which he alleged regarding the pulpwood embargo battle he was waging. I found papers from the US side of the story, and they corroborate his allegations. It would be invaluable to find more germane documents.”

An active member of the Ontario Professional Foresters Association, Kuhlberg continued: “I have spent my life writing about various aspects of ‘forest history.’ My interest in the field was fueled by the 20 seasons I spent in the forests of Canada as a tree planter and reforestation project supervisor. I am working on a project that re-examines Barnjum’s work on behalf of forest conservation during the 1920s. He fought to prevent Canada from exporting logs to the US, and he was opposed by the mighty U.S. pulp and paper industry. It launched a concerted and well-funded effort to defeat Barnjum, hiring lobbyists, lawyers and public relations experts in Canada to fight its campaign. Barnjum funded his work entirely on his own dime, and although he eventually failed to realize his goal, he did yeoman’s service in publicizing the importance of forest conservation to Canadians.”

In a word, the professor expects to write a “more balanced” piece for an academic journal on the controversial conservationist. Therefore, he hopes to connect with any of Barnjum’s descendants in Lynnfield who might share family history, pictures, documents or the like relating to their storied forebear.

The obituary

The size and prominence of Barnjum’s obituary in the Wakefield Daily Item on Feb. 20, 1933 suggest his standing in the community. Headline: “F. J. D. Barnum, lumber king, forest conservation exponent, dies in Paris — Lynnfield Center man has notable career — built up fortune and then devoted life to saving timberlands.”

His survivors included:

Son: George Barnjum, who was with his father when he died in Paris.

Daughters: Mrs. William Russell of Arlington Street, Lynnfield; Mrs. Roy Griffin of Forest Hill Avenue, Lynnfield; and Mrs. Harold Wood, Mrs. Harold Page, Mrs. Freeland Savage, all of Kingfield, Maine.

He also had a brother Herbert E. Barnjum of Lynnfield Centre, and the late George Barnjum of Lincoln Avenue, Lynnfield, who died in December 1932.

Kingfield, Maine connections

Recently, I have corresponded with Kirsten Kelley, Curator of the Kingfield Historical Society. She is familiar with “Barnjum,” which is actually a point on a map in remote Franklin County Maine. Kelley came across the location while mapping out a birding trail in the area some years back. Little is left of the settlement that she compared to “an abandoned mining site.” It is not that far from Rangely, Maine, a popular recreational destination.

Kelley also told me that a recently deceased friend, Freeland Savage, had donated the same picture of Fred Barnjum standing by the tree to the Kingfield Historical Society before his death. She hopes to contact his widow who lives in Connecticut. She assumes that Savage was the Barnjum’s grandson. I also expect to place an article in “The Irregular,” Kingfield’s weekly online newspaper, in the hope of searching out any progeny of Barnjum’s three married daughters who lived in Kingfield at the time of his death in 1933.

Lynnfield history

Although his celebrity has faded, Fred Barnjum’s story remains of interest in the local community. The home he built at 60 Summer Street still stands with many improvements and additions over the years. Kirk Mansfield, history buff and Lynnfield Historical Commission Chairman, is currently writing a book about Pillings Pond in which the conservationist figures prominently.

Indeed, the profits from his Lynnfield real estate dealings provided the means for Barnjum’s burgeoning lumber business in Maine, Canada and beyond.

So I would ask anyone with knowledge of Barnjum’s descendants, or any other information about the family, to contact me. I will gladly pass it on to Professor Kuhlberg and Kirk Mansfield for their work on F.J.D. Barnjum, Lynnfield’s own “Lumber King.”

— Residents can contact Helen Breen at 781-771-1461 or helenbreen@comcast.net.