Sawmills were the most common kind of mills found in most 19th-century New England towns. America boasted over 31,000 sawmills by 1840. Most were owned and operated by farmers of above-average means, who often ran them seasonally, as water levels and the demands of their farm work permitted. Some cut lumber for sale, and those near cheap water transportation could ship their products to distant markets. Most sawmills, however, served neighborhoods due to the expense of transporting high-weight but low-value lumber any great distance over land. They charged local farmers by the board foot (a volumetric measurement one foot by one foot by one inch) to saw logs brought to the mill into boards, planks, and timbers. In a day one man with a sawmill could cut as much lumber as two men working by hand could do in a week.

From the 13th century until about the middle of the 19th, most sawmills consisted of a straight saw blade strung tight in a rectangular wooden frame, called a sash or gate. The saw sash is connected to a water wheel below it through a crank and by a wooden sweep or pitman arm (the latter taking its name from the man who, before sawmills made him obsolete, stood in a pit below a log and pulled a saw through the wood by hand to make boards). The turning motion of the water wheel is converted to the up and down motion of the saw by the eccentric crank. Some power from the saw sash is used to turn a large gear, called a rag wheel. This in turn moves the carriage which the log rests on, pulling the log through the saw. The saw cuts into the log on its down stroke, and the log moves forward again on the up stroke. After one board is sawed, the log carriage is run back to the other end of the mill, the log moved over, and another board cut. This process is repeated until the whole log has been sawed into lumber. Often a sawyer will square up two sides of a log first, then turn the log 90 degrees so that the flat sides are on the top and bottom. Then when he saws the log into boards they will all have straight edges.

Design of a typical sawmill:
Front	Right side
Left	Rear