The Beaufort tribune and Port Royal commercial. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1877-1879, 1877-08-02
HOW LUMBERMEN LIVE.
Long Hours and Numerous, If not Luxurious,
Meals-Sunday In the Woods.

The Journal. of Lewiston, Me-,
prints the following: The annual COM
ing of the river drivers, whose tents are
now pitched near us on the banks OF the
Androscoggin, is an event anxlously
awaited this year, not only by the lum-
Der manufacturers, but also by the lum-
Der consumers. And not by these alone;
for the lumbermen will soon be along in
quest of new suits of clothes and the
luxuries of civilized life. They are vig-
orous, energetic men, leading a jolly if a
laborious and dangerous life. A glance
at their style of doing things may not be
without interest at this time.
Three hundred men will cover and cut
a section of about three miles square,
taking off over 60, 900 logs, which would
measured bout 1000, 900 feet, each sea-
son. Work begins at daylight and ends
at dark and when the days lengthen, or
the moon favors. a long twilight or ear
her morn, the men get the benefit in
longer working hours. On the river,
when the drive is started, work begins
at three o'clock in the morning, and ends
at nine in the evening, the men having
five meals-breakfast at six, lunch at
nine, dinner at twelve, supper at five,
and tea at nine. The meal consists OF
pork and beans, corn bread, molasses
cake, and tea or coffee.
No stint is given to mans appetite.
The fare, such as it is, is abundant, mo-
notonous, nutritious, and cheap. A
cook is provided for every fifty men.
The beans are generally the large white
bush, parboiled in pots holding about
half a bushel, then ten pounds OF pork
is set in the middle of the beans in the
pot, q quarter of pint of molasses
poured in, and then the pot is set in a
hole surrounded with hot ashes and
burning charcoal, the top covered with
stone, over which a heavy wood fire is
built, and here they stay from five to
eight hours, coming out palatable dish.
All the baking is done in rudely built,
stone ovens, which are heated, before
the dough is mixed, with a good wood
fire. The loaves of biscuit or cake are
set upon the stones and are cooked
quickly and thoroughly.
A camp of 800 men will consume daily
four barrels of beans, half barrel of
pork, one barrel of -four, half q barrel OF
meal, one-qualter of a barrel of sugar,
and five gallons Of molasses. The men
are encamped in tents, making their
beds of boughs, while their extra cloth
ing, pair of dark oyeralls, woolen shirt,
and two pairs of woolen socks, is kept in
an old grain sack, and used as pillow
at night.
Sunday in the woods is always a day
for sharpening axes, mendine sleds, re-
pairing boots and clothes, setting out
new tenting spot handler to the cutting
in the woods, and all the odd chores
which would grow out of the congrega-
tion of so large body of men. All we'll
regulated camps exclude liquor. Being
usually fifty to one hundred miles from
any settlement, and the men not being
paid until the end of the season, there is
little inducement for any speculator to
peddle rum through the woods, or for
the men to straggle off in search of it.
The consumption of axes and handles
is enormous, an axe lasting month and
a handle three weeks. The axes are
sharpened daily, some camps having
regular sharpeners, while others require
each man to keep his own axe in order.
The old axes are never collected for the
Junk dealers, the distance to ship them
being almost too great to make it an
economical measure.