Bligh captain of , anchored in Adventure Bay, Tasmania and ordered his crew to dig a saw pit in order to repair their boat. Eight months later the crew would go on to mutiny in the famous Mutiny on the Bounty. In January 1788, the first British fleet sailed into Botany Bay, then Sydney Cove to settle Sydney. Saw pits were promptly dug in both places so building timber could be produced. New Zealand Saw pits were prominent in the early European logging of New Zealand. Even with the introduction of water-powered sawmills in the 1840s, and steam-powered sawmills in 1865, saw pits were still being used in the early 1900s in difficult locations. Nineteenth century pit sawyers in New Zealand were well paid; during the 1840s in Nelson, a sawyer could earn 80 pounds in five months, more than double the average wage at the time. Micro history The saw pit at Llanaeron Home Farm is unusually housed in a single-story open-fronted building. The rear wall is of rubble (stone) construction and there is a rubble pier at each of the front corners, with the whole structure under a pitched slate roof. Q-pits, used to make White coal, are often found nearby saw pits. William Shakespeare refers to saw pits in the Merry Wives of Windsor. Daniel Defoe's character, the 17th century castaway Robinson Crusoe, complains about how difficult it is to saw timber into planks without the use of a saw pit. Philip Wharton was born in 1613, and at the age of 12 (1625) he became the fourth Lord Wharton. In 1642 Lord Wharton raised a regiment of foot soldiers and a troop of horsemen to fight in the Battle of Edgehill. They behaved less than gloriously - "Before there were any near excuse three or four of our regiments fairly ran away - Sir William Fairfax's, Sir Henry Cholmley's, my Lord Kimbolton's and to say the plain truth my own." Wharton himself ran away and is said to have hidden in a saw pit, thus earning for himself the parliamentary nickname of Philip 'Sawpit' Wharton. The settlement of Saw Pit in the United States of America eventually outgrew this name and became Port Chester by incorporating as a village in 1868. The Town of Sawpit, Colorado is a statutory town located in San Miguel County, Colorado, United States of America. Sites of old saw pits England