Cowls Building Supply

Address: 125 Sunderland Road
Town: North Amherst, MA 01059
Telephone: (413) 549-0001
Web site: http://www.cowls.com/
Category: Building Materials/Lumber Yard

Welcome to Cowls. We have been doing business in North Amherst since 1741. To translate this into tree years, if the Cowls Companies were one of their own Eastern White Pine trees, its trunk would be 150 feet high, 50 inches in diameter, and reveal more than 260 annual rings. The Cowls Companies are a unique agricultural, lumber and building materials business that blends the best of the last three centuries with the best of the new.

Cowls Building Supply is a ninth generation family owned business providing building materials and hardware to the areas finest contractors, handymen, maintenance crews, and do-it-yourselfers. From a full line hardware store, including Benjamin Moore Paints, to the extensive inventory of lumber and building materials stocked entirely under covered storage, Cowls has what you need for nearly any project. And with our new showroom, you can see many examples of kitchens, windows, doors, trim, and flooring installed in a home-like setting.

In October 1741, Jonathan Cowls brought his family across the Connecticut River from Hatfield, Massachusetts, and settled on land he bought in what is now North Amherst. The Cowls were among the first five families to settle in Amherst, then part of Hadley. That original purchase off Meadow Street in North Amherst has been under continuous cultivation ever since and is contiguous with the site on which the Cowls Companies operate their mill and retail store today. Additional timberlands have been acquired since then in about 30 other towns in Hampshire and Franklin counties.

Cowls Sawmill & Land Company
134 Montague Road
P.O. Box 9677
North Amherst, MA 01059
413-549-1403

Award Winning Sustainable Forestry
2005 NHLA Forest Stewardship Award

2007 International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Forest
Stewardship Award

2007 BASF American Tree Farm System award for Outstanding Achievements in Sustainable Forestry

About half of the logs Cowls saws come off its own timberland, which the company has been sustainably managing from between 10 to 260 years, depending on the tract. The majority of company-owned land is within 30 miles of the sawmill, but in order to assure a great supply of saw logs for the mill, Cowls also purchases logs from suppliers in Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire and Vermont.

"The W.D. Cowls company has been an exemplary steward of Massachusetts forestland for many generations. They are committed to responsible forest management that protects and enhances soil, water, wildlife, and wood resources, and this is reflected in the high quality of their forestry and logging practices on their land, and on the lands of their clients."

- Joseph Smith, Director
The Forest and Wood Products Institute