A Look Back In Time:

August 6, 2024August 6, 2024 Lucinda

A. Mason & Sons of Peru, New York

By Neal Burdick

Sawmills were essential to America’s economic development and the building of communities. They provided work for mill hands, and in some companies, steady work and pensions. The sawmills allowed waste products to be used for other purposes, and supplied lumber not only to New York but to regions as far-flung as the South and the Midwest.

Neal Burdick is the grandson of Charles Mason, A. Mason & Sons’ draftsman who died during the flu pandemic of 1918-19, some 31 years before Burdick was born. He has childhood memories of the mill’s sawdust aroma and its five o’clock steam whistle signaling the end of the workday. The company no longer exists, having succumbed to pressure from “big boys” in the 1970s.
– William J. O’Hern

Soon after the Civil War, Albert Mason started a lumber milling operation on the Little Ausable River where it ran through the Clinton County village of Peru, New York, in the shadow of Huckleberry Mountain and the rest of the northeastern Adirondack foothills. His son George grew to maturity and joined the business, then George’s brother Nate, then Charles, and eventually Will, Ed, and Herb, the six strapping young men constituting the “& Sons” of the company. Charles was my maternal grandfather, but I never knew him; along with millions worldwide, he died in the great influenza pandemic of 1918, when my mother was just six years old. Each of the boys worked his way up through the ranks, and each was missing at least one finger, undeniable evidence that although he was part of “management” – the treasurer or a draftsman perhaps, he had nevertheless been expected to learn how to use the powerful circular saws, planers, lathes and other equipment necessary to a milling operation.

The A. Mason & Sons mill and shop about 1890. The horse-drawn cart in the right foreground carried sawdust from the mill to the shop’s boiler room for fuel. The barrels on the roof held water for fire suppression. The Mason complex included a blacksmith shop, far left, while the buildings in the left background were in the center of Peru village, uphill from the shallow valley of the Litte Ausable River.

Mason’s mill produced lumber for houses, barns, stores and so on, while an adjoining shop turned out woodwork, such as newel posts, stair railings, windows, doors, and residential trim. A. Mason & Sons’ craftsmanship can still be seen in countless houses throughout northeast New York State, but perhaps most noticeably in the woodwork of the Valcour Island lighthouse, now an historic site on Lake Champlain.

Theirs was an integrated operation; that is, they produced their own timber rather than buying it from jobbers. The Masons owned woodlots in the vicinity of Onchiota in southern Franklin County, from which they harvested the trees (mostly white pine, but some hardwoods for door sills and the like) that they then fashioned into either retail lumber or construction components. How they transported the logs the fifty-some-odd miles to the Peru mill I do not know; the lots were in the Saranac River watershed, which was too shallow to permit the iconic softwood log drives of Hudson River or Black River renown, and besides, the mill was in a different watershed. I suspect they shipped the raw material by rail to Plattsburgh via the Delaware & Hudson’s Chateaugay Branch, which despite its name ran between Saranac Lake and Plattsburgh, passing through Onchiota, and thence from Plattsburgh on the D&H’s Ausable Branch, which featured a siding for the mill on its way to its terminus in Ausable Forks.

The A. Mason & Sons mill and shop about 1910. Among the 20 workers pictured may be founder Albert Mason and some of his six sons. Mason’s also employed workers at its woodlots in Onchiota. The barrels on the roof held water for fire suppression. Below: As for those days gone by, a snapshot of a scene frozen in time is all that we have.

The Masons stored and seasoned their logs in an impoundment of the Little Ausable behind a low dam a few yards upstream from the mill. I remember the pond from my boyhood days of visiting my grandmother’s house, built and outfitted by A. Mason & Sons, just a few rods farther upstream: Clogged with logs, redolent of wet pine, soaked bark lying along the banks, and hordes of frogs who offered a free symphony chorus on summer evenings.

I also remember the stench of rotting wood scraps, other fibrous plant matter, and mud; these were the days before water pollution was of major concern, and clean water legislation was still a few years in the offing. Even the youngest of my five great-uncles were deceased by the time that all came along. I’ve often wondered what they would have said about environmental regulations, or for that matter what they thought of the Adirondack Forest Preserve and State Park legislation of 1885 and 1892 respectively. The company was in full swing then; did those steps hamper their operation and injure its profitability? The park law and the 1894 “forever wild” amendment to the state constitution were put in place in part because loggers were lax about recognizing or obeying the restrictions established by creation of the Forest Preserve; were my greatgrandfather, grandfather and great-uncles among the offenders, or did they foresee the value of forest conservation? By the time I was old enough to recognize this important question, they were no longer alive for me to ask.

Those regulations must not have hurt too much; the business thrived through the early years of the 20th century, and the Mason men built the finest homes in the village for themselves and their families. What did hurt was the Great Depression of the 1930s. In economic hard times, home-builders gave up luxuries like ornate pillars and balustrades. But the Masons refused to lay anyone off; in a small town where everyone knew everyone else and they were the largest single employer, they were determined not to put a breadwinner out of a job. Better to do with less themselves than force someone who’d been a faithful and reliable worker for years to do without. The men, mostly Irish and French Canadians, returned that loyalty by staying on, even if they had to make do with reduced wages.

After World War II came economic recovery, rapid growth, and a housing boom, and business throttled up again. The Masons, now down to three of the six sons of Albert, plus some of their children – third generation in the family business – expanded with a retail lumber yard in Plattsburgh. But competition from the “big boys” like Weyerhauser and 84 Lumber, along with foreign interests, proved increasingly hard to overcome. They branched out into wholesale and retail hardware and building supplies, but the Big Box competition was overwhelming there, too. Truth be told, lack of interest on the part of the third generation also played a part.

In the mid-1970s, after more than 100 years in operation, A. Mason & Sons, like lots of “Mom and Pop” (and all the kids) operations all over the Adirondacks and indeed the nation, folded. The mill closed down, and both it and the lumber yard in Plattsburgh eventually became the sites of low-income subsidized housing – a touch of irony, since the Masons had made home-building components for so long. The dam was breached, and the Little Ausable returned to the quiet and sweet-smelling stream it had once been. A small plaque mounted on a stone indicates the site of the mill, and the family name remains in perpetuity here and there in Peru, as on the facade of the Mason Memorial Library, which the family donated to their community.

One of my favorite memories of Mason’s mill is the sound of the mill’s shrill steam whistle signaling, for all the town to hear, the end of each workday. That whistle has been silenced for many years now, but I still hear it in reveries of my childhood, of an Adirondack way of life now mostly an echo across time.

Pat O’Brien

March 1, 2024March 1, 2024 Lucinda

Pat O’Brien grew up in the Adirondack North Country in the 1930s, when lumbering was still big business. The ring of the axe and the thundering crash of the giant trees …

A Look Back In Time

Published in The Northern Logger magazine, February 2024

I met Pat O’Brien in the fall of 1977 when I was invited to sit among a group of long-retired men, who earlier in their lives had a connection with the logging industry. The gathering place was Joe and Madge Conway’s home in Woodgate, New York.

I was there to witness the first of what came to be many other assemblages that were videotaped by Mary Teal. Teal was a long-time Lyons Falls History Association historian/archivist.

PHOTOS COURTESY LEIGH PORTNER
Old-time logging scenes shared at annual gatherings brought back memories that were shared with
a new generation.

Pat O’Brien was an exemplary conversationalist.

He enjoyed talking about his connection with log jobbers, truck drivers, white-water men, cooks and the meals they prepared, lumber camps – just about everything connected to the “lumber woods.”
O’Brien grew up in the Adirondack North Country in the 1930s, when lumbering was still big business. The ring of the axe and the thundering crash of the giant trees that punctuated the otherwise silent atmosphere in the virgin forest were strong in his memory.

I thought of him as a living encyclopedia of logging history. His knowledge was vast. He fielded many questions, including names, dates of events, details of lumbering companies, and so much more.

From him I picked up logging terms. “Corks” stood for calks – the sharp, pointed nails on soles and heels of river jacks’ boots. The needle-sharp points provided the dexterity for the “bubblewalkers” to “dance” from log-to-log, prodding thirteen-foot softwood logs with peaveys down through dangerous stretches of “white water” where a “catty” might “wash their clothes.”

But for all O’Brien’s forest industry information, he truly shined with his natural story-telling talent. Here’s how he described the unconventional outhouses:

They were not your regular variety. No individual seats but instead a peeled pole stretching across a dug trench where 10 to 15 men could sit together … across it. I recall this one camp I worked at had a number of awfully big men and it must have been the biggest man who had constructed the slit trench outhouse because he (Pat stretched as he demonstrated) was about as high as the peeled poles stood off the ground horizontally. I’d have to get a running leap to get up on it and you sure as shooting wanted to keep your balance and not slip off.

Since your feet couldn’t touch the ground, you’d have to concentrate on what you were doing because you sure as hell knew where you’d fall if you didn’t. And he described the men’s quarters in the lumber camps. “The smell of the bunkroom … well, nothing was worse.

You can’t imagine it where some 50 to 75 men lived and slept, with never really any chance to bathe thoroughly, launder their socks and clothing, bedding, whatever.”

Bed bugs and body lice were a recurring dilemma. It was the job of each ’jack to shake all the straw out of his personal cloth-covered mattress and boil the cover in one of the great black iron kettles also used to boil clothing. The covers were then refilled with new straw. “A deterrent for bed bugs was to spray the bunk bed boards with kerosene,” Pat said.

A pasty mixture of roofing tar and lard spread over one’s skin helped ward off mosquitoes and punkies. “Oh, and there was red lice. They come in under the wings of bats.” Pat joked, “I liked to go down to the big horse barns because they smelled so much better than the men’s camps.”

Log Drive:
You or the Devil or God
If we go back in folklore
As we go back in our lives,
We always hear tell
Of the loose-living hell
Working the Moose River Drives.
Working the River was danger
During the break-up thaw,
Many men drowned
And never were found
Life on the River was raw.
Driving the wood on the River
To fill the company needs,
All in the name of progress,
Part of the rivermen’s breed.
Born to take neck-breaking chances,
Trained to take breath-taking rides;
Hard-working, hard-drinking woodsmen,
With genuine shoe leather hides.
Times were tough and so were the men.
The pay was two dollars and board.
The water was cold, the water was deep,
As the logs and the Moose River roared.
The River would drown you quick as a wink,
If your caulks didn’t hold in the log.
No man could save you, if you fell in,
It was you, or the devil, or God.
God wasn’t acquainted with many,
He scarcely knew a score,
But the devil knew all the rest,
He had seen them raise hell before.
It took a special breed of men
To take chances with their lives,
To get the logs to Lyons Falls,
On the Old Moose River Drive.
– Original Poem by Pat O’Brien,
September 10, 1980

For all of Pat’s storytelling, he made it very clear that while the old days might seem exciting and colorful, l should have no illusion about the forestry industry. The work was hard, the hours were long and there was constant danger. In his later years, he worked for the Gould Paper Company and later as a scaler for Georgia Pacific at Lyons Falls, NY.

“I recall my son once telling me that he wanted to grow up and be a lumberjack just like me,” O’Brien told me. “I didn’t cotton to his admiration of my timber industry profession because of the long hours, hard dangerous work, and long periods away from home. I could have killed him!”

Pat didn’t pull any punches with me either.

Indeed, Pat was a gifted story teller right up to his death. He is the only person I know who insisted on two grave plots and stones. One stone has the typical inscription. For another burial plot, his headstone reads: “See, I told you I was sick.”

On my last visit with Pat, he handed me a typed copy of his original poem, “Log Drive: You or the Devil or God.” He told me the inspiration for the lines came to him on September 10, 1980 when he spotted a familiar old-timer’s gravestone on one of many walks he enjoyed taking through the “ground of memories.”

Pat had a “feeling” for the ’jacks of earlier days. His poem captures the risk and hard life involved in what he called “following the wood by water.” Each time I pass by the Constableville cemetery my thoughts drift back to him.

Pat O’Brien is highlighted in Chapter 29 of “Adirondack Logging: Life and Times in the Early Years of Logging’s Mechanization,” by William J. O’Hern.

A Look Back In Time – The Fabulous Carnahans – Part Two

November 8, 2023November 8, 2023 Lucinda

By Howard Thomas

Log drive — Spring, to all connected with logging meant only one thing – the annual log drive.

This is Part 2 of “The Fabulous Carnahans,” a story among many collected by upstate New York folklore enthusiast, Howard Thomas. It appears here with permission of Bob Igoe, president and owner of North Country Books, Utica, N.Y. Look for Part 1 in the October 2023 issue.—William J. O’Hern

*Cleanup crews worked from boats as a sort of a “rear guard” to make sure that every last log reached its destination. They also aided in rescues in dangerous situations.*

Two years after the Carnahan brothers came to Wilmurt, New York, Sol was conducting the Trenton Falls Lumber Company’s spring drive near Jock’s Lake outlet. The creek was at flood peak, a boiling, seething mass of brown water. A dangerous jam developed, so Ab took Dan Pinney and a boatman and rode to the head of the jam, where he and Dan jumped onto the logs while the boatman remained ready to take them to shore when the jam broke.

The two riverjacks went to work with their peaveys and succeeded in loosening logs near a big rock. The jam began to move before they could get back to the boat, and the creek became filled with dancing, tumbling logs. Ab and Dan jumped from log to log to get as near shore as possible. Seeing open water ahead, they each selected a log and began to ride it, paddling and pushing toward shore with their peaveys. Ab made out well, but Pinney was being drawn toward rapids which led to a waterfall no man had ever ridden successfully. Ab, seeing his pal’s predicament, deliberately placed his peavey against Dan’s log and sent it toward shore. The force of the shove sent Ab’s log back into the stream, but he paddled back and gave Dan’s log another push. Pinney jumped from his log and swam to the shore and safety.

Log jam buster — *BOOM! Massive log jams caused dangerous conditions for river drivers and needed to be blown with dynamite to create open channels.*

Not so Carnahan. His log was caught by the swirling water. With great skill, he “cuffed” the log into position and faced the white water ahead. He might have ridden to safety, but the log struck a submerged rock. He was thrown far ahead into the roaring stream. Pinney saw him rise to the surface only to be crushed to death between two colliding logs. His body was recovered hours later far down the creek. Sol took it to New Brunswick for burial. Ab Carnahan, at the age of twenty-two, had given his life to save that of another man.

Erv stayed on with Sol. Like Ab, he was a soft-spoken, intelligent lad who did many errands for his elder brother, for his drinking habits had eliminated him from work on the rivers.

Sol was driving logs up in the Moose River country one spring and Erv was sent to Utica for the payroll money. Muggins Laird wanted to go along, though Erv and Sol both knew Muggins would kill a man to get a drink of liquor. Sol waited patiently for payroll money that never arrived. Erv and Muggins were seen getting off the train and starting toward the Carnahan lumber camp. That was the last anyone ever saw of Erv Carnahan.

Old-timers say that fingers of suspicion were pointed at Muggins, who seems to have won the dislike of all the jacks, but nothing could ever be proved. Eph Wheeler, who knew Sol well in the old days, said that he met Sol in a Utica hotel a few years before Sol’s death. Eph asked Sol if he had any word from Erv, whereupon Sol shook his head sadly.

*The dangerous work of the river drivers often captured the attention of crowds of spectators to witness the annual river drive.*

The Carnahans have become more or less of a legend along West Canada Creek. The few men left who once worked for Sol will always say, “Sol Carnahan? He was a great old Sol.”

Spring break up is signaled when the frost comes out of the log hauling roads and the ice breaks up in the rivers. River drivers relied on the natural runoff to float the 1-foot, 4-inch softwood logs downriver through frequent falls, rapids, and natural rock barriers.

A Look Back In Time – The Fabulous Carnahans

October 2, 2023October 2, 2023 Lucinda

By Howard Thomas

Published in Northern Logger, Oct. 2023

Sol Carnahan’s name is part of logging fame along with names like Dan McCauley, Jim McBeth, Tim Dunn, Henry Kreizer, Jim Hill, George Abbott, and John B. Todd – all charter members, for they were the great men of the river drives. The raw-bone men were familiar with river driving terms such as the “raw right-angled jam,” the “wing jam,” and the “key log,” terms not used in today’s logging operations.

These popular bosses, wrote Howard Thomas in Folklore from the Adirondack Foothills (Prospect Books, 1958), “had a flair for handling not only logs but men, from the stolid ‘pig-yokers’ who worked near shore to the flashy, temperamental riverjacks who risked life and limb in order to break jams and get the logs down the amber streams to the mills.”

Carnahan was born in McKinleyville, New Brunswick, Canada on March 17, 1878. As a young man he went to Maine and worked as a lumberman, eventually moving to northern New York where he began lumbering for himself. He operated logging camps in Wells, Speculator, Lake Pleasant, Wilmurt, Hinckley, Poland, and in the Black and West Canada river areas.

Mr. Carnahan was a Republican in politics, and while in Herkimer county operated a hotel in Noblesboro in the Town of Wilmurt and was active as a public officer. From 1890 to 1892 he was road commissioner in the Town of Wilmurt and in 1902 was supervisor for one term.

In 1908 Sol moved to Cooperstown where he carried on various lumbering jobs as well as owned and operated a large dairy farm until moving to Morris and then Guilford, where he continued work as an active farmer in Chenango county for 30 years until his death at the age of 70 in 1947.

“The Fabulous Carnahans” offers a unique look at a legendary logging personality. The story is among many collected by upstate New York folklore enthusiast, Howard Thomas. It appears here with permission of Bob Igoe, president and owner of North Country Books, Utica, NY.

– William J. O’Hern

Log Jam — Working a log jam on the Moose River.

Sol Carnahan came down from New Brunswick in the early 1890s to take charge of a log drive on West
Canada Creek. He was so homesick at first that he refused to answer letters from his relatives for fear that they would write back to him. He felt more at home when his wife and his two younger brothers, Ab and Erv, joined him in Wilmurt.

Sol conducted drives down West Canada Creek and the Black and Moose Rivers for years. No river boss ever
gained more respect from his men. When Sol retired to finish out his years on a farm near Cooperstown, the riverjacks and pig-yokers sensed that they had lost their dearest friend.

Sol knew his job from A to Z. In his younger days, he was so good at driving logs that he was rewarded with the highest praise given to a man in his profession – the nickname of “bubble-walker.” Though Sol could not swim a stroke, he probably took more chances than any riverjack in the foothills. To celebrate one Fourth of July at Bellingertown, he rode through the white water of a flooded Black River with his peavey held straight up before
him, and sailed under the bridge to the applause of a group of rivermen who had gathered to see his performance.

Riverjacks and pig-yorkers respected Sol. “Pig-yorkers” were men who followed along the shoreline and pushed logs back into the river that became beached or jammed up in some way.

No foreman in the woods ever worked men harder than did Sol Carnahan, yet he won and held the admiration of them all. During the drive, he arose at three in the morning and rousted out his help. Sol’s men complained that they never saw daylight. One fellow claimed that when he went to bed he hung up his pants on the bedpost and they were still swinging when Sol woke him in the morning.

The men worked hard for Sol, for he paid better wages than did most jobbers, and food was plentiful. When the drive neared Northwood, Will Light used to come over from his hotel with steaming food which he served right on the shore of the creek. It is said that one hungry riverjack, smelling the food, forgot to ride the logs, but merely dove in and swam across the icy creek.

Sol also knew how to relax with his men. Trume Brown, who worked for Sol as a young lad and for years afterward, used to say that Carnahan was a bad actor when in the cups. Sol didn’t get disagreeable, but he let himself go with such wild abandon that he was the scourge of hotel keepers from Utica to Piseco, though they tolerated his shenanigans because he was such a good spender. On one occasion, when he and his jacks were drinking at the Bucket of Blood in Utica, Sol asked the proprietor casually, “What will you take for your damned bar, just for an hour?”

The canny proprietor set the price at five hundred dollars, whereupon Sol produced a roll of greenbacks that would have choked a cow, peeled off five hundred-dollar bills, and tossed them on the bar. Again, at the Mansion House, Sol spotted a piano and felt in the mood for singing shanties. Since neither he nor any of his men could play, he jumped up on the piano and pounded the keys with his boots, all the while roaring, “The Jam on Garry’s Rock.” When the hotel man protested that Sol had wrecked the piano, which was true, Sol sent his men to a music store and bought a new one. The proprietor tried to remove the old, battered instrument, but Sol cried, “That’s mine,” and continued to play with his feet and sing shanties until he almost dropped from exhaustion.

Sol’s most dramatic exploit occurred in Foote’s Hotel in Piseco, where lumberjacks were celebrating the culmination of a successful drive. Everyone seemed to be there but Sol, and the party was getting duller by the minute. Suddenly, without warning, the door burst open and Sol rode in on horseback, pranced up to the bar, and had his drinks while the bartender patted the horse’s nose.

Though Sol “palled around” with his men, he stood for no foolishness from them while on the job. If the creek was ready for the drive, he would send word to the Utica hotels that he would meet his men at Prospect station with buckboards at a certain time. The men always showed up so that Bill Hughes and Morey Platt could drive them from the station to the woods.

Tote-drivers were sent out frequently for supplies, and Jack Roberts, a burly fellow, usually got the assignment. Trume Brown used to tell how he and three other young fellows were delegated to go with Roberts to pick up a load of supplies which included a barrel of whiskey. On the way back, the men thought it would do no harm to tap the barrel and have a little drink. The pleasure proved so habit-forming that they lost all sense of time and direction. Three days later, they appeared at Sol’s camp, minus most of the whiskey. Sol resorted to quick justice.
Inasmuch as the barrel of whiskey had cost $125, he took $25 from the wages of each of the five men, amounts that constituted a whole month’s earnings.

Sol fitted in well with the locals around Wilmurt, where he ran a store. At a donation for the minister held in the Eureka House, he donned a white apron and served the guests. Folks up that way say no waiter at the Waldorf-Astoria could have done a better job than the river boss did on that occasion.
Sol’s younger brothers, Adam, commonly called Ab, then about twenty years old, and Erv, a year or so younger, joined Sol in Wilmurt, and their coming did much to settle his early discontent. They worked with Sol on drives and gave promise of developing into superior riverjacks. Ab, in particular, was becoming the best riverman who ever looked at the creek. Erv would have made better progress if he could have stayed away from the liquor. He kept a bottle under his bed and would start each day by taking a big swig of whiskey and eat his breakfast for a chaser.

To be continued.

Look for Part 2 in the next issue.

A Look Back In Time – Thrilling Rescues

September 8, 2023September 8, 2023 Lucinda

The following is a compilation of stories collected by Upstate New York folklore enthusiast, Howard Thomas, and published in Folklore from The Adirondack Foothills (Prospect Books, 1958). It appears here with the permission of Bob Igoe, president and owner of North Country Books.

Article Printed in “The Northern Logger”, Sept. 2023

BY HOWARD THOMAS

River Drivers — The right shoes and a lot of skill make this dangerous work look possibly easy and exciting to crowds who watched from shore. The truth was river drivers rode with death.

One afternoon in May 1909, Mrs. Lowell Odit was hanging up clothes behind her home overlooking Wilmurt Falls on the West Canada when she heard a cry for help rise above the roar of the creek. Looking upstream, she saw a man riding a log. As she watched, the log rolled and threw its rider into the water. He rose to the surface and clutched the end of the log.

“Low!” Mrs. Odit cried to her husband, “There’s a man in the creek above the falls. He’ll go over them for sure.”

Low rushed to his wife’s side as the man cried, “Goodbye. I got to go!” and was carried over the falls into the pond which backed up water for Richards’ mill. The Odits gasped in amazement, for Wilmurt Falls had always been considered a death trap, but the log had picked the one course possible to get the man through. The danger was far from over, for a second fall at the mill dam would undoubtedly prove fatal.

“It’s Muggins Laird,” gasped Low. “He ain’t no swimmer.” He carried a long board to the creek’s edge and stretched out on his stomach on an overhanging hemlock where he could push the board within reach of the man in the water.

“Swim a little, Muggins,” cried Low.

“I can’t. I’m all numb and can’t move.”

Odit coaxed Muggins’ log with his board and drew it toward him until he could get a hold on Muggins’ shirt.

Slowly, but surely, he got Muggins to shore and to the house, where the riverjack warmed himself, had a cup of strong coffee, and marched back up the river in his wet clothes, thankful that he had received no more than a bad ducking.

Rivermen wore heavy woolens, so they were not afraid of a spill into the water. Nor did the fact that many of them could not swim a stroke deter them from taking chances with dangerous rapids. The men were joking with George Dolly, a husky, two-hundred-pounder who had little skill with the peavey and was unable to swim. Dolly, tired of the joshing, bet the others ten dollars he could get down through a particularly rough stretch of “white water” unscathed. The men tried to dissuade Dolly, but they covered his money.

Caulked Boots — Calked boots were essential footwear to river drivers.

Dolly picked up a peavey and jumped onto a log, which he pushed toward the rapids. He lasted one split second. Soon he was thrashing around like a walrus as the current carried him downstream. Watchers along the shore could see first an arm, then a leg, and occasionally Dolly’s head. They felt sure the big fellow was riding to his death. Dolly had other ideas. He eddied around in the swirling water and rolled and tumbled to shore to receive his ten dollars.

One of the most daring river rescues took place near the bridge at McKeever, in April 1914. John B. Todd, superintendent of the Gould Paper Company drive, had already saved one man from going over a fall below the bridge by throwing him a rope and drawing him to the boom above the fall. His boss riverman, Jim Haley, was destined to perform a greater miracle.

Heavy rains had caused logs to jam against the McKeever Bridge piers. More logs tumbled against them, with the result that the jam resembled a huge game of jackstraws with the Moose River racing beneath it. Riverjacks were sent out with peaveys to loosen some logs from the mass and send them into the rushing current.

When the jam broke with a roar, Jack McGee, a green hand, was unable to leave the logs. The other jacks saw his peril and yelled for him to run up the jam. Instead, he became panic-stricken and did nothing.

Jim Haley, who was standing on the bridge, yelled for McGee to lie down on the logs, with the hope that he would pass under the bridge safely. McGee chose one log instead of two or three. He was swept under the bridge and into the river.

Haley heard the cry, “He’s in!” He grabbed a peavey, leaped from the bridge to a dancing log, dug his “corks” [caulks, or boot cleats] in, balanced himself, and jumped from log to log in McGee’s direction. When he had overtaken the drowning man, Haley sank his peavey into his log, braced himself, and drew McGee out of the water. Holding the almost unconscious man over his knees, he directed the log to shore and safety.

A Look Back In Time

April 13, 2023April 13, 2023 Lucinda

1903 Fish Creek Lumber Camp Murder

Published in “Northern Logger” magazine, April 2023

From Viewpoints, “Letters to the Editor,” Hamilton County News, July 1, 1987. From the time the first double-bitted axe bit into a tree to the final river log drive, the century-and-a-half period brought lumber camps to house lumberjacks scattered all over the Adirondack North Country and Tug Hill. Just how many camps there were and their exact locations would probably be only a guess, but the number would easily run in the hundreds.

PHOTO COURTESY EDWARD BLANKMAN (THE LLOYD BLANKMAN COLLECTION

Bert Conklin at the top of his game.

I have bushwhacked high into Cold River country’s Ouluska Pass in the northern Adirondacks hoping to find some remains of a lumber camp Dick Wood and EJ Dailey spoke about during their late 1910s and early 1920s fur-trapping days in Cold River country. The duo spoke about the remains of a small chopper’s shanty in the shadow of Seymour Mountain. A female cook had reportedly died of mysterious circumstances according to the reports learned from men at Lumber Camp 4, a site now occupied by a lean-to approximately a mile beyond Ward Brook lean-to.

At one time there had been a rough tote connection between Camp 4 and Ouluska Pass, but today the terrain between the two points makes for a challenging bushwhack.

Careful investigation today can still reveal leftovers from former lumber camps. Searches generally turn up old bottles – usually liniment, whiskey, and medicine – as well as all types of metal objects. A good many of the old camp clearings and sites I have found have been dug up by bottle collectors and those looking for interesting things from the old logging days.

Cold River lumber enthusiast and historian, Sharp Swan, has spent years combing the High Peaks between Seward, Donaldson, Emmons, and Couchsachraga mountains. His investigations have resulted in a considerable wealth of history of the old logging days in that far-off section. But his hobby, as with other searchers, more than likely has not turned up a majority of the locations of former camps. Evidence of early camps has become harder to find over the passage of time. Once grassy areas, the camp clearings first filled with brambles and pioneer tree species, then by an overgrowth of forest that has completely hidden the sites. Sometimes the bottoms of foundations are spotted where buildings were banked with earth, and the trenches where the banking was dug along the sides of the buildings are often the most evident signs that a camp was there. Even rarer are the remains of an old root cellar.

I find the best stories of old pulpwood camps come from the memories of old-timers. Folklorist and writer Helen Escha Tyler told of a fascinating 1918 pulp job on the slopes of Whiteface Mountain in her Mountain Memories (1974). She based the story in part on an interview with Asa Lawrence of Wilmington, NY. Former Hamilton County historian Ted Aber’s books are also good resources of collected stories and tales.
This memory of B. Harold Chartock of Wilmurt, NY, is an example of a true event that was never documented by Dr. Eliza Jane, the current Hamilton County historian. Like so many logging camps, this camp and everything Mr. Chartock describes exists solely in the following letter he wrote to the Hamilton County News, which published it July 1, 1987.

Photo courtesy DICK WOODS

Abandoned lumber camps made ideal ready-made shelter for sportsmen.

Dear Chris:
The Fish Lumber Camp was located on the northeast corner of Round Pond, which is west of King’s Flow about a mile.

One morning Mr. MacKenzie, a lumber-jack from this camp, after crossing the upper Round Pond Brook walking on the Pine Peak Brook-Tannery Bark Road, was entering an old logging field when another lumberjack from the same camp came up behind him and suddenly struck him with a heavy rusty iron wagon bolen in the back of the head, smashing a hole in MacKenzie’s skull.

The killer then dragged the dead body way out on a peninsula that protrudes out into the southern end of Round Pond. He hid dead MacKenzie in a dense spruce and hemlock thicket, surrounded by towering white pines.

This murder occurred in October 1903. About a month later in November, two more lumberjacks from the same camp, one of them George Hutchins of Indian Lake, found MacKenzie’s body. It was badly decayed.
With a shoulder pole, they carried him out to the end of the peninsula and dug a hole, buried him and gathered rocks scattered in the woods, and then heaped up a pile of rocks marking his grave.

Others in this camp noticed after these two lumberjacks came up missing that all of MacKenzie’s belongings remained untouched, but the other missing lumberjack’s things were gone, including a ragged old blanket that belonged to Lowell Fish. MacKenzie’s murderer gathered his belongings, his rifle, and Fish’s blanket then took the Kunjamuk road going around the west side of Round Pond, walked to Speculator, Lake Pleasant, Piseco Lake, Hoffmeister, Morehouse, and Nobleboro. Then he took the West Canada Creek wagon road up to Honnedaga Lake and a foot trail bearing west to a small settlement on North Lake, where he asked for a job.

He was told the Conklin Logging Camp up in the Town of Webb. He arrived there the next day and got hired by Burt as a log cutter to work in his chain of lumber clearings from October 1903 to May 1904.

Burton Conklin noticed that this new guy worked well, didn’t brawl, drink, or court women, and he hid, so none of the visitors to the camp ever saw him. It was in May 1904 that he got the rest of his pay from Burt, which was $5 per week plus food and lodging, but didn’t say he was quitting.

Burt watched him, and later spotted him removing a ragged old blanket from a hollow tree. He got his rifle out, cleaned grease off the metal parts, polished up the woodwork and left the blanket laying on the ground, took his rifle and bundle of stuff, then walked off into the woods never to be seen again by Burt.

It was sometime later that Burt realized this guy’s peculiar behavior was that of a murderer. He notified the sheriff and deputies, and they traced MacKenzie’s murderer to a train station in Utica, where he bought a ticket. State and federal detectives took over and the manhunt was on. They lost his trail after he got off a train out in the state of Colorado. Burt Conklin never heard of Fish’s Camp, nor the MacKenzie murder. He died in 1947, age 84. The MacKenzie murderer left the “Adirondack Rocks” for the “Big West.”

My great-grandfather worked in the Crotched Pond woods back in the early days before moving to Pennsylvania to work with his cousin in leather processing. This murder took place between the existence of New York State Troopers.

They were established in 1860, served just in the cities, got abolished in 1865, and re-established in 1917 to serve only in the countryside. So, 1987 is the 75th anniversary of the New York State Police. Pennsylvania State Troopers were established only once, and that was in 1905, so 1987 is their 82nd anniversary.

The police thought they were after the September 1903 murderer of Mr. Dexter of Franklin County. The two murders are unrelated. The MacKenzie murder of Hamilton County is not a story; it really took place.
—B. HAROLD CHARTOCK, WILMURT, NY

This old newspaper article is fascinating and seems to have all the elements of a good mystery novel set in a lumber camp at the turn of the 20th century. No other mention of this camp has surfaced during the research I’ve done. It’s strange to think of all the buildings and people who have basically vanished from the Adirondack landscape – just like the MacKenzie murderer did, only more slowly and with only Mother Nature to guide the changes.

A Look Back In Time – In Conversation with Adirondack Author William J. O’Hern

August 24, 2021September 18, 2022 Lucinda

The first time I met William J. “Jay” O’Hern, it was in The Northern Logger offices in Old Forge, New York.

A Look Back In Time

In Conversation with Adirondack Author William J. O’Hern

An article by Eileen Townsend printed in “The Northern Logger “, June 2021

The first time I met William J. “Jay” O’Hern, it was in The Northern Logger offices in Old Forge, New York. The Northern Logger keeps an archive of old publications, dating back to 1939, in our basement, and O’Hern was in the office for research purposes. At the time, he was hard at work compiling the stories and photographs that now make up his 500+ page book, Adirondack Timber Cruising. O’Hern is a prolific author whose work is well known in the Adirondacks, and his interests aren’t limited to logging. But he has written several informative and richly detailed volumes that catalogue the lives and times of Adirondack foresters and loggers. The topic clearly remains a compelling one for him.

As the title suggests, Adirondack Timber Cruising is about the development of timber cruising, logging, forestry and our relationship to our physical environment. In the book, through narratives of everyday lives, O’Hern attempts to show that conservation is concerned with our spiritual and mental as well as our material welfare. It is not enough to use forest resources wisely, with the idea that forestry is an end in itself, but rather the end is greater human happiness through wise forest management. O’Hern’s book is concerned with the people who lived and worked in the timber woods before chainsaws and trucks, who witnessed firsthand how mechanization changed everything.

I spoke with O’Hern about his fascination with logging culture and what drew him to write Adirondack Timber Cruising, which followed his earlier book on logging, Life in a North Woods Lumber Camp. As of 2021, the prolific author is looking toward is fourth volume on logging, called The Adirondack Logging Industry. He said that he never meant to write three volumes on the subject, but after he got started, there was simply too much history to relay. As is usually the case in the timber industry, the work continues.

Construction of a bridge over the Indian River in the Moose River Plains by Gould Paper Company, circa. late 1940s.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Northern Logger: What first interested you in writing about logging?

Jay O’Hern: It had to do with my first occupation. When I was 21, I worked at a sawmill in New York. It was hard manual work, but for one reason or another, I enjoyed the work. Listening to the older fellows talk got me more interested in the cycle that the industry had gone through over the decades from horse logging to mechanization. I only worked there for about a year. Unfortunately, their debarker caught fire, the mill burned to the ground, and I moved on. But I was hooked on logging after that. Once I moved to Camden, New York, I met a lot of people who were loggers or former loggers and worked in logging camps. Hearing their tales helped turn back the time and took me away – turning back the years. There were no books to document their memories. These people were dying, and with them the human history.

I started interviewing with really no idea of writing. But as more and more of them passed away, I thought, I’ve got to do something with their stories because I owe it to their memory. So, I just embarked on writing. Luckily, I had written some other books. I’m not trained as a writer at all, but based on my experience with the process of writing, I knew I could put together books that would carry on the life of the people who had passed away.

NL: You’re obviously a very thorough researcher. What have you learned about the relevance of historical research today?

JO: One thing I noted talking to older loggers is how much enjoyment they expressed about their work. It didn’t matter how hard the manual labor was or whether they used powered machinery. They loved their work. Maybe the average person thinks about logging, “Why would they like this kind of work? It’s so darn hard and demanding!” But, as I learned in these interviews, it was just something that they cherished. They also cherish the fact they wanted to have a sustainable supply to timber.

NL: What draws you to writing about everyday life?

JO: I’m fascinated by the memorabilia. I love thinking about how the logging industry has changed over time. There are men and women involved in the logging industry who worked with oxen, then horses, and then from there went to mechanical machinery. I know a number of people who collect vintage logging machinery and equipment. I’ve gone on several trips to unearth what I call “the ghosts of logging.” In fact, one logger called me last night and said he heard there was a Linn tractor back in the woods. I’ve gone on these bushwhacks for years, hunting for these ghosts that are supposed to be left back in the woods. Most of the time we don’t find them. But there have been gems we have found. Loggers and even people who aren’t loggers can appreciate the early machinery and how it functions. I meet people at book signings with white collar occupations and no connection to the logging world at all, but they’re just interested! I’m happy to have put the books together because everything that I’ve collected would have been gone if it hadn’t been published, and people would know very little about the everyday lives of these folks.

NL: Based on your historical knowledge of the Adirondacks, where do you think the industry is headed today?

JO: I’m hopeful that it is headed in a good direction. I’ve seen so many forests that were under the protection of various logging companies go back to “Forever Wild.” But I think the industry is smart enough to survive whatever comes its way. No matter how big and expensive the machinery is, we know we’re going to have logging. For the most part, I think companies that now have large preserves are looking toward the future. That’s only based on what I see around around New York’s Tug Hill region. It’s changing a lot because one man can do the work of many men in the past, and it’s getting very expensive for that one- or two-man operation. You see the cost of the equipment is hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you only hope that the logger isn’t going to destroy the property for the initial cash out.

NL: What else should our readers know about your work?

JO: I love including pictures in my books! Pictures can say a thousand words, and I have been fortunate to be able to collect a large number of pictures taken mostly by people who were in the woods. People want to have books with pictures to help visualize the logging industry, to understand the lifestyle, the hardships and the interest they have in doing that type of work. I want my legacy to be that I’ve taken the time sharing these people’s lives and their type of work and how the industry has changed. That’s the history in me, the history of the average man and woman. You can find political history all over, but you can’t find the kind of human history that I’ve done, which is about the common day people.

When developing my books, I experienced lumber camp life, accounts of river drives, the passing of old-style logging with oxen and horses, shared their remembrances, learned about the rise of diesel and gas-powered machinery and even prepared some popular camp recipes. How cool is that? And, while decades have passed, I still picture Norm Griffin in Camp 9’s bunk room talking about hula girls and his plan of flying to Hawaii; then old George’s story of how he swore the camp cook eliminated gas from his bean soup. There was Ed Raymond’s tale of an American bedbug; tough Rita Chisson’s rules that kept the lumberjacks in line during mealtime. I could go on and on about the work, accidents, light-humored moments and white-water tragedies. I think Conse Delutis expressed the admiration toward all lumberjacks best: “They were a sturdy, hard-talking lot with hearts of gold, men who would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it but show you no mercy if you tangled with them. Men [and women] you’d like to know.”

During the writing process, I also did a lot of thinking about my pastoral homeland and asking, “How important is protecting open space and the nation’s forests for tomorrow’s children?” I confess I am heartsick when longtime farms shut down and plant and wildlife habitat is destroyed with each new development. People must strike a balance between abundant lives, the natural world and leaving a heritage for future generations.

The Gould Lumber Company followed strict standards when developing their haul road that reached deep into the Moose River Plains

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Adirondack Characters and Campfire Yarns – Spruce Lake Country

June 9, 2021September 20, 2022 Lucinda

Spruce Lake is one of those baptismal landscapes that offers a refreshing sight. The thought will soar a tired spirit, refresh a wearied soul.

Adirondack Characters And Campfire Yarns

Spruce Lake, Far back and long ago

An excerpt from ” Adirondack Characters And Campfire Yarns “, Starting on page 187.

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I suppose anyone who likes the outdoors, consults a guidebook, and enjoys traveling throughout the great Adirondack forest shares a need for a special place: a meadow, a summit, fire tower, lake or pond, a stretch of incomparable water to paddle or fish, a favorite trail or a seldom-climbed rocky knob. The list is as endless as people are diverse. The particular place where we can eye the mountain topography, think of a little history or study the pleasing geography can stick in our mind long after we leave it. The thought will soar a tired spirit, refresh a wearied soul, and perk up a sinking feeling.

Spruce Lake is one of those baptismal landscapes that offers a refreshing sight. Located about ten miles northwest of Piseco Lake Village, it is one-and- a-quarter miles long and one half mile wide and lies 2,378 feet above sea level. Few people ever see it, although it is accessible by foot trail on the way in to the home site of French Louie, the old woodsman who once lived at Big West. Time is an asset. I make use of it as one should a nonrenewable natural resource. While rowing and later, lakeside, nestled in one of three lean-tos tucked along the tight spruce-balsam bordered lake, by a crackling fire, with the freedom time affords, I have looked at fishing pictures that were taken in this vicinity. On the path from the village of Piseco that in 1880 consisted of only three or four families, I suspect the old Indian hermit “Pezeeko,” who once dwelt upon its shores, tramped approximately the same terrain of the Great Forest I cover to reach the backwoods lake. Then, the scenery was wild and beautiful. The lake is no different now. Then, the recent explorations and extensive reports on the Topographical Survey of the Adirondack Wilderness, by Verplanck Colvin, served to attract attention in this direction. The lake was richly supplied with trout. Deer fed in the daytime around the almost impenetrable shoreline. It was also the headquarters of a well-liked spruce gum-picking Adirondack character. From his camp at the lake, Tim Crowley packed pack baskets of gum out to the Daniels factory in Poland, where it was purified and packaged for sale.

In time, a twelve-mile sled road extended Pezeeko’s footpath. The access afforded guides an avenue for their horses to pull jumpers, and city sports to traverse northwest overland from Piseco to Spruce and Balsam Lakes and more distant trout waters where the tenderfoot sportsmen could whip the streams.

There, for example, through the dense stands of spruce and balsam, the faint muddy footpath around the south shore of the lake joins with a southerly non- descript track that leads to Spruce Lake Mountain and Indian River stillwater. Farther along Spruce’s southern shoreline, another obscure trace meanders westerly in the direction of West Canada Creek’s headwaters. Illegal all- terrain vehicles have made their mark. Prefabricated bridges lie hidden in bushes to span tributaries where once the Adirondack guide who worked for three dollars a day carried a guideboat, guns and fishing tackle, his bulky pack basket and cooking utensils. He was a one-man traveling camp outfit.

The guide-of-old took pride in his knowledge of woodcraft. Without a murmur he would have made the rough “carry” for miles with a boat on his shoulder and, on reaching a favored location, would quickly set up a camp, and gather firewood for cooking and balsam boughs for a bed. He would cook, wash the pots and pans and perform whatever else was necessary to make a party of tenderfoot sportsmen comfortable and happy. Back of the outside world beyond the edges of the North Woods, the guide’s mind filled with woods lore, he told of his unsophisticated adventures. The Adirondack guide was a valuable companion in the solitude of the deep woods. There is something marvelous about traveling throughout Spruce Lake country. Its past and geography bring on creative ideas. The creative ideas, in turn, affect emotions of my heart and allow me to dream of past times.

I think of Speculator’s Dan Page and forest ranger Jim “Pants” Lawrence. Jim and the West Canadas are synonymous. At age 63, Jim constructed the log bridge across Mud Lake inlet. His way of life and his eccentricities became symbols of Big West, his interior ranger cabin home.

Both men were oldsters but popular personalities in the territory during the middle of the twentieth century. Their knowledge of the land and firsthand stories of backwoods dwellers Johnny Leaf and Adirondack French Louie (Louie Seymour) became legend. Louie had put in a good evening the night of February 27, 1915, at the bar of the Brooks Hotel in Speculator, drinking with Pants Lawrence. The next day Louie died.

I didn’t know French Louie but I knew Winfred “Slim” Murdock. Slim, late in life, shared his time with me looking back on his years as a packer for his uncle Gerald Kenwell. Gerald’s parents were Adirondack pioneers. On the bank of the South Branch of the Moose River in the Moose River Plains, his parents lived in the 1890s. Their nearest neighbors resided eighteen miles away!

It was while living in the Plains that Lewie, as Gerald spelled his name, came to know the Kenwells. Louie taught Gerald (who was only a young boy) how to care for himself in the woods under all kinds of circumstances. Slim said his uncle told him the woodscraft learned from Louie became “mighty useful in later years.” Once grown, Gerald built a fishing and hunting camp along Otter Brook. Slim began packing for Gerald about 1920.

Retired Forest Ranger Jim “Pants” Lawrence, and woodsman Dan Page beside an Adirondack guideboat.

COURTESY EDWARD BLANKMAN (THE LLOYD BLANKMAN COLLECTION)

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Adirondack Characters and Campfire Yarns – Sportsmen’s Camps and Backwoods Destinations

May 28, 2021September 20, 2022 Lucinda

Once, sportsmen and tourist propaganda depicted exciting experiences. Sportsmen sojourned in hunters’ camps – bark or pole lean-tos provided by guides.

Adirondack Characters And Campfire Yarns

Sportsmen’s Camps and Backwoods Destinations

An excerpt from ” Adirondack Characters And Campfire Yarns “, Starting on page 177.

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AS NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST, author of West Canada Creek, hiker and kayaker David Beetle so often put it, “The West Canada is a good river to know.” Beetle would know. Over the course of a year he tramped his way up and down the stream, interviewed hundreds of old timers, and braved the upper West Canada Creek’s powerful rapids many times in his wooden kayak, all in the name of research to gather the first written history of the river’s 75-mile course.

Mud Lake is the source of the watercourse. The river winds southwest toward Prospect, fed by outlets from a maze of Adirondack lakes. The mountainous country was once home to Louis “French Louie” Seymour, who lived on the shore of Big West. The West Canada Lakes are distant and hard to reach, but the remoteness doesn’t bother the backpackers who, if they arrive during just the right stretch in June, will find the shorelines abloom with pink azalea. Nature’s palette has daubed the West Canada Creek wildwood trails in year-round witchery, from the budding softwoods and hardwoods of spring to the snow-clad evergreens of winter. The entire region was once under the last glacial ice sheets that blanketed the Adirondacks. The glaciers were responsible for shaping the current landscape. Their receding waters left a vast number of boulders and erratics everywhere.

“This wild, hour-glass-shaped high plateau is higher than any other Adirondack land mass.” At an elevation of 2,458 feet, Wilmurt “is the highest settled lake in the Adirondacks.” Fort Noble Mountain, the highest surface feature in the region, is in the Town of Wilmurt. A fire tower was once constructed on the summit; observers looked out over Nobleboro, West Canada Creek and the South Branch of the West Canada Creek in Herkimer County. Its slopes are a sweep of scented winds over balsam, spruce and pine, and are costumed in brilliant fall colors for leaf peepers, ranging in hue from red to pale yellow. Author Barbara McMartin’s Discover the West Central Adirondacks guidebook tells us about the southwest Canada Lakes Wilderness: “Although many trails penetrate its narrow core, parts of it are trackless, making it the most remote and secret area in the park … The creeks conceal spectacular forests as well as a dozen inviting lakes.” The guidebook reports that “There is currently no view from … (Fort Noble Mountain]. In its last few years, when the tower stood abandoned, you could still climb its rickety stairs for the view. However, even to do this you had to ford the South Branch, no mean feat even in low water, because the great hiker’s suspension bridge was removed about 1980.” The “160,000 acres (would be] the second largest Wilderness Area (after the High Peaks in Essex Country) in the Adirondacks, a bushwhacker’s paradise were it not for the difficulty in fording the South Branch and the large blocks of Adirondack League Club and Wilmurt Tract lands that are posted.” McMartin’s guide emphasizes that the owners “permit no one on their lands.”

Once, sportsmen and tourist propaganda depicted exciting experiences.

Sports sojourned in hunters’ camps – bark or pole lean-tos provided by guides who selected camping grounds, felled trees and peeled bark for the shanties, fitted up enticing balsam bough beds on the floors, built shelves and racks, kept the campfires and smudges going night and day, prepared and cooked the meals, washed dishes, told yarns and, late nights or early mornings, left the sports to sleep while they slipped away to return with venison or fish. Those recreationists who sought a woods experience but had more congenial tastes, wishing to avoid living in the heart of the woods but preferring the charms of hotel life to those of camp life, sought out public houses with unpapered pine board partitions rather than the hotels with covered verandahs, barrooms, bedrooms, bathrooms to wash off the dust of forest travel, and dining rooms that offered a well-arranged menu from which to select dinner.

The stories in this chapter touch on a few of the high spots Blankman and Norton learned of or visited in their days of circling the Adirondacks. Most deal with the forest and lake settings in the West Canada region. Almost every turn they took brought them to a point of interest-Spruce Lake, now wild, once filled with trout-Adirondack Whiskey Springs, a lake bed containing an interesting natural resource, and more.

Reading the old recollections is an excellent way to get that old-time “forest feeling.” And it’s invigorating.

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Adirondack Characters and Campfire Yarns – Lumber Camp Shanties

May 21, 2021September 19, 2022 Lucinda

The difference is in the extent of the cutting, modern techniques and equipment and the total disappearance of the old-time company-owned lumber camp shanties.

Adirondack Characters And Campfire Yarns

Lumber Camp Shanties

An excerpt from ” Adirondack Characters And Campfire Yarns “, Starting on page 149.

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A dam building crew at Mill Creek Lake outlet, 1900. Tom Grimes (far right) and “Mr. Young” (on horseback) are the only two identified.

COURTESY EDWARD BLANKMAN (THE LLOYD BLANKMAN COLLECTION)

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The days of the log drive in the Adirondacks are over. Lumbering, of course, is still going on. The difference is in the extent of the cutting, modern techniques and equipment and the total disappearance of the old-time company-owned lumber camp shanties.

The mountains are still the same today as when the old-time lumberjacks left the woods. The land supports rich robes of spruce and hemlock, patterned with stands of hardwoods. On mountain and hill is the same breathless beauty that must have thrilled the lumber companies’ never-ending appetite for wood.

My interest in the Adirondack logging culture stems from my own work in the Crockett’s sawmill early in my adult life. There I learned hard work – enjoyable but demanding. Talking to old-timers started me down a path of personal research. Seeing my interest, one veteran of the lumber woods after another steered me to friends and acquaintances who participated in the latter days of the heyday of the logging era. I gained access to a vast store of yarns, recollections, and photographs of older residents of the region, as well as to more formal state reports and histories.

Someday I’ll develop a book with the material I’ve collected. I want the book to present a man-in-the-street approach to the area’s logging history by de-emphasizing statistical data and concentrating on folklore. The book will contain a background of historical data along with a succession of picturesque incidents, stories and legends of seriousness, humor, and adventure that affected the lives of those who lived in the lumber camps and worked in the Adirondack forest.

I began my informal research just in time, for there were not many old-timers left who could tell what was going on before the days of the Linn tractors when there was still the flavor of the pioneer woodchopper in isolated camps distant from the settlements.

Yes, the lumberjacks and river men, heroes of a romantic saga, whose skill and might provided an income a century ago, are gone today, but for future generations, as well as the present ones, a great amount of material can be gathered to present stories of life in those early days.

The staid facts of logging history are clothed with vivid descriptions of the people who successively lived and worked in the region, and with accounts, often humorous, of events that transpired in early days in Adirondack country.

Those of us who prefer our history informal will be grateful to the old men and women and their relatives for sharing the best of their recollections. Through their memories, the best tradition of historical writing, in my opinion, is a story of the boisterous goings-on of the people who once lived and worked robustly in the lumber woods.