The Mineral argus., 1884-10-30
DYING FOR IT'S MASTER.

An old man and a young man met in
an uptown museum the other day and
found mutual interest in discussing a
den of snakes. "Ifyouw would care to hear
n - said the old man, who was old only
in years, his sturdy form indicating that
not more than three-quarters of his life
was behind him. "If you would care to
hear it Twill tell you a story about a
snake, not one of these foreign reptiles,
Init a home-bred rattlesnake, too COM
mon, / suppose, to find a place here"
"Tell it," said the young man.
"Snake stories are always interesting"
And SO it came about that fifteen min
utes later the two sat at a table In the
quiet corner of aquIet restaurant with
a bottle of Tokay, for which the place
is famous, between them. The old man
lifted the wine glass between his
thumb and finger, watched the exquis-
tie light playing in the red depths of
the glass, and thus began:
my name is Thomas Wilman, and L
live in Philadelphia, where my son
Harry, is a prominent business man.
Thirty-one years ago yesterday 1 mar
ried in Great Darlington, Mass, as
pretty a girl as that village, famous
for It's pretty girls ever sheltered. She
had been well brought up, but I had no
fortune. I had 81, 500, which 1 hal
made by running a saw-mill. We were
Young and had the world before us,
and we concluded to go west. Going
west in those days didn't mean, as it
seems to now, going beyond the Mis-
sissippi. Going into York state was
going west then. / had a cousin in
Cattaraugus, a little village on the Erie
railway, thirty miles east of Dunkirk,
and we concluded to go there.
at was late in August when we
reached Cattaraugus. Ny cousin gave
us a hearty welcome, and l set about
looking for a spot to build. The vii
lage is surrounded by hills and the
wonder to me is that it doesn't slide
down into the w~ashbowl-like valley on
the side of which it is built. A little
creek runs through the village, and a
mile to the west find itself in a deep
narrow valley, with almost p~erpendicu-
lar sides, 100 feet high. This valley is
called Skinner Hollow, and is one of
the most picturesque spots on the Erie
road. / went down into the hollow
prospecting. The sides, where they
were not steep, were covered with a
heavy growth of first class pine, and
for miles around the hills were thick
with the same timber. l saw there was
money in a saw-mill right down IN that
hollow, and / built one on the stream
which, could see was a good sized creek
most of the year. 1t is n of the
branches of Cattaraugus Greek, which
empties into Lake Erie, thirty miles
west of Buffalo.
II built my mill there, and close to
it a little house, so close, in fact, that
the two joined. I took Katie, that is my
wife, down there, and we began house
keeping. That was we'll in the winter,
and 1 began logging at once l hired o
gan of men to help me, raised money
by contracting my lumber ahead and
started in. We cut logs on the hills
close to the mill, rugged up slides, and
ran them down to the log-way. L tell
you it was music to me when the saw
ripped into the first log and a clean cut
slab dropped away fran the teeth. We
had a little jo~lliication. That was the
first log ever cut in Skinner Hollow
and people drove ten miles to see it
Business was good. There was lots Of
snow, which made it easy work getting
logs to the mill and drawing lumber out
to the village, besides giving me all the
water / wanted. In fact water was
running over the tail of my fume every
hour from the time 1 turned it into the
race until the middle of July. Then
dry spell came on, and 1 had to shu'
down for two or three hours every day
to let my race fill up.
''But 1 didn't mind that. 1 had haC
a tip top season and had made money,
I had logs enough at my door to keel
me busy for a year and L knew WHERE
there we're plenty more when they raj
out. And besides 1 had two to lool
after instead of one. You wouldn'
think if you'd see Harry, with all IN
refined ways and education, that tn
first music he ever heard was a say
through a pine knot. But it's so. ID
was a pioneers son and knocked arounC
a saw-mill till he was in his teens
WELL, when business was slow
worked around the house, fixing u
things here and there for Katie, so a
to make her more comfortable. Sh
couldn't have been more contented
She used to think that saw-mill wa