Then and Now: Fire sales at Conway Supply: 1935, 1954

The last house the 1930 census marshal came to in Conway was the West Side home of Arthur O. Lucy, who described himself that year as a farmer. He was already devoting himself more to lumbering, however, and he had started developing a partnership with Simon Huckins and his son, Albert, who operated a sawmill in Ossipee. Early in 1933, Lucy moved his own milling business to Conway Village, calling it Conway Supply, sharing the $5,000 capital investment with Albert Huckins.

Their new business consisted of a collection of buildings that included the late A.C. Kennett’s former spool mill on West Main Street, which stretched across what would later become Mill Street and then Hobbs Street. The spool mill had been through many hands since Kennett sold it, but the new owners rented it to Fred Merrow and Walter Burnell, who milled a wide assortment of products, from buttons to wooden toys. Conway Supply occupied other buildings beside and behind the old spool factory, where saws and planers worked up lumber from the logs delivered to the rail yard across the street.