John Whitesell ran a one man timber operation and was drawn to these frontiers in part by a desire to escape from some secret hurt.
One Man Timber Operation
An Excerpt from Life at a North Woods Lumber Camp
Then there was old John Whitesell, who as a pioneer operator belongs in this recital. John had been in the region long before we arrived, carrying on a one-man business. His work was in timber, however, albeit alone, removed from other men, and he possessed a character that would grace the pages of a book of gold.
Fred undoubtedly had heard of John, but in any case we came across him one day, north from our camp toward the Chippewa River, at the edge of a black-ash swale, a mile, two miles, from his camp. Here, sitting astride a shaving bench with a drawshave, making barrel hoops, we first saw him. As a matter of fact, we saw him but a time or two thereafter, for a year or two later he returned to his native “York State.”
Courtesy of Lyons Falls History Association
Tom and Fred O’Donnell remembered fondly the early characters they met.
It is possible that John came originally to Greendale with the Gibbses, drawn to these frontiers in part by a desire to escape from some secret hurt, and in part by a nature that to start with had leanings in the direction of solitude. He had built a shanty within sight of the Chippewa, and there he lived alone, picking and selling berries in summer, making hoops, fishing a little and in winter setting traps for otter, muskrats and such other fur-bearing animals as he found a ready market for in Mount Pleasant. His wants were few and he seemed to be content with the scanty income his activities provided.
In appearance John was not unlike John Burroughs, beard and all. His manner was gentler than was the great naturalist’s. He talked little enough, but if he did not give you a great deal of his history, between the wide-spaced lines there was much that you could read. He directed his conversation to Fred, and it speaks volumes for the strength of his personality that never did my dander rise at his clear neglect of me.
“I like these swales,” he told Fred. “I’ve never seen their like anywhere else. I suppose there is some reason why they are
like that just here. But you could say the same thing about me, and about you, and I don’t ask questions about that either. I can work in the sun all day and hear the wind in the trees, and talk with the birds – for they come right up to where you are sitting and talk, kind of, and then after sizing me up awhile they will fly into a tree and sing for me.” In Fred John had a sympathetic audience, even if, as I suspect, he didn’t understand too much of what the old man was saying. Both of us listened intently, so much so that he was encouraged to go on.
“Maybe you’ve noticed these swales, when the leaves have gone – how blue they are with the sunlight on them. In winter with the snow they are even more wonderful. I come here to this one, which is the finest of them all, a good deal in the winter.”