News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-07-15
LOGGING ON THE PENOBSC0T.
Perils and PrivatiOns of the Maine Lum-
bermen's Exciting Occupations

! bermen's Exciting Occupat iOn'
A letter from Bangor says; This city
| once the greatest lumber market OF thC
world, though doing much smaller
! business than Penobscot's palmy days, Il
| still the home of expert loggers ano
| drivers and the headquarters for the mos
approved kinds of lumbermen's nipple
ments. Such is the fame of Bangor
cant-dogs and axes and battaeuX thai
operators in the comparatively new log
cling regions of the West and far Oh
Pacific slope send here for them. But
it is the men of the Penobscot who are
principally sought. not for cutting the
logs, for almost anybody can swing an
axe. but for the perilous work of driv,
ing the logs through rapid waters and
over roaring falls and swift rapids.
Every spring, when the trees have been
felled and when the warm sun has trans
formed frozen streams into rushing
torrents, men from the Kennebec and
Connecticut come to Bangor to hire
crews who are clever with the axe and
cant-dog, and who are not afraid to
break a jam or leep on the bare ground
in single BANKED. They are especially
anxious to get Bangor boys when they
have hard drive in prospect, for they
know that the Penobscot red-shirters
will pull them through if it is a possible
thing.
Not many people understand how
logs are driven from the wilds where
they are cut so many miles to the great
booms near the mills where they are
sawn into lumber. 1t is peculiar and
hazardous work, and when lot of
drivers start away for the headwaters
with their pick-poles, cant-dogs and
axes it is Just as natural to expect that
some of them never will come back alive
as it would be in case company OF sol
diers starting for the battlefield. After
the loggers get through dumping the
logs over into the frozen streams but a
brief period ensues before the snow and
the ice melt and carry the big spruce
sticks in great masses down stream and
create big jams, backing the water up
so that many of the logs are floated over
submerged flats, to be left high and dry
when the first detachments of drivers
break the Jams and let the water lose.
Then the drivers work begins. The
grounded logs, in the upper country
where horses cannot be used, must be
carried to the streams by the men, and
often it requires twenty strong drivers,
knee deep in mud, to carry a
single stick to the water. The farmers
whose meadows are thus strewn with
logs often claim the timber as a recon-
pense for the obstruction it causes to
their operations, and at times they APP
pear with shOtguns to prevent the
drivers from carrying off the logs. But
he boss driver orders his men to ''bring
hat staff down, " and the ''stutf' gener-
lily comes.
Several crews are employed on drive
Of any considerable size, one at the
head, or lower end others along the line
'ocks, rapids and falls where the moving
mass is likely to jam, and these places
must be carefully watched to prevent
general changing up" of the logs.
one big stick, caught on
ock, will hold back hundreds of thou
ands of feet and then some daring fell
ow is ordered out with an axe to chop
way the obstruction. 1t is at the risk
If his life. He must be quick, for at
he last stroke of his axe the big log
maps asunder with boom like that of
cannon and then there is a tremendous
tampede of all the logs behind it.
f the driver is lucky and agile he gets
shore all right, leaping from log to log.
tut one misstep or a little slowness is
likely to precipitate him into the seeth-
ng mass, and if it is ever found below
lis body is mangled almost beyond re-
Generally it is never found.
Is the drive progresses the men follow
through the woods or along the rocky,
Uneven shores after it, the "wangans,
IT commissary departments of the differ
mt gangs, going on before. The driver
works as long rs it is light enough to
zee log, and when the moon is bright
hey often 90 to work at 8 o'clock in
he morning and continue until the last
ylimmer of twilight. Then they cat their
plentiful but coarse evening meal and,
in their blankets, lie down to
sleep. While they sleep, which seems
to them but an hour, the "wangan"
moves ahead tlve or six miles, and when
they awake there is that distance to
walk through the woods before break
fast.
saw to-day Bangor man who had
Just returned from the Connecticut,
where he had driven six weeks, Sundays
for $3.50 a day, and he
brought sad story with him. After
,scap ng several peris himself he had
seen one of his campmates go down to
1 cruel fate, while another was barely
saved alive. These two, Bangor boy
and an old driver from st. John, N. B.,
lad come up from the lower end of
lrive, near North Stratford, VT, to
lelp break a big jam above. They
walked through the woods to o point
ust above the Jam and then started
Town stream for it on a log apiece. Be-
'Ore they knew it they were i'll "white
water" around some rocks; one log was
Ost and the two were left clinging to
he other. When they reached the jam
t, while the st. John man was swept
lnder and lost beneath the wilderness
If logs. The young fellow, pinned by
he big stick to which he chung, cried |
n vain for help, for the crew were out !
# hearing, and was just about to go |
!nder when another floating log struck |
lis and swung it around in such a way |
s to hberate him. Then he managed |
o struggle ashore, and, terribly injured,
Tas conveyed to the nearest house. |
river driving is a dangerous business,
ut there are plenty of men here ready !
D take its chances.