A "boom" of logs harvested on MacMahan Island floats across Goose Rocks Passage in the Sheepscot River to Westport Island. To create a boom, the perimeter logs are chained together making a fence of sorts for the other logs, allowing large groups of logs to be moved easily across the water. Loggers brought the logs ashore and loaded them by hand for transport at the old Brooks Farm on the southern tip of Westport.

Pejepscot Paper Company, under the supervision of their forester Lin Rideout, contracted with Edwin Cromwell's sawmill business, Thick and Thin Lumber, to harvest the timber at the request of MacMahan residents.