St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-06-26
The PINE PIRATES.
they Rob the Woods Of Wis
consin Of Millions Of Feet
Of Lumber.
Minnesota Officials Said to
Have Had a Finger in
the Pudding.
The Value Of the Stolen Logs
Said to Be Millions Of
Dollars.
Peter Thielen's Body Found
in the Mississippi at st.
Cloud.

MADISON. Wis, June 25.-The state
lana commissioners have, during the
past three months, been investigating
the subject of treSpaSS on timber lands,
and unearthed great frauds. Millions
upon millions of feet of pine lumber
have been cut by various individuals
DIFF public lands with no authority what
ever. Two millions were stolen from
single township in the northwestern
part of the state within the past two
years, and the commonwealth detectives
found many logs with the thieves mill
marks on them. lying where they fell.
The robberies have been going on for
dozen years, and the extent of the loss
to the stateis simply enormous. Much
of the rascaliUy cPnnot, of course. be
traced, and much of it is chargeable to
irresponsible loggerS who sold the tim
Der to the men where marks are found
on it. Suits will be instituted at once
by the attorney general against numer-
Gus individuals for the recovery of the
value of the timber stolen, and among
the victims is Frederick w. Weyer-
hauser, the lumber king of the upper
Mississippi. The state land commits
siOners are 10th as yet to give many de-
tails regarding the cases, for the reason
that they are not quite ready 10 institute
suits, but they admit that there is no
way of knowing the
Extent of the RObberies
they have been going on for fifteen or
twenty years, and many forest fires have
occurred in the meantime to obliterate
all traces even of stumps that remained.
But the state has 10 doubt lost tens and
hundreds of millions of feet of timber.
With pine timber worth IS or SO per
thousand the loss, it will be seen, must
be simply enormous. The marks on the
timber have "given away" many lum-
bermen and the attorney general is pre-
pairing to institute suits against them.
The cases will be prosecuted with vigor
and determination, and great effort
Will be made to recover at least a
portion of the vast sum, aggre-
eating no doubt millions of dollars,
out of which the state has been openly
defrauded. The cases may, however,
be compromises, but the law provides a
minimum penalty of the payment of the
value OF the property obtained by the
trespass with 100 per cent of its value
added. Few names of the alleged tres
passers can be obtained. Weyerhauser
Is said to have got hold of some of the
stolen timber, but it does not follow that
he knows of the manner in which it was
obtained. Nearly all the Saltwater
lumbermen are said to be involved. as
well as some at La Crosse. Even a re-
cent surYeyor-general of Minnesota is
reputed to have certified to himself
owning some logs, which, 1t is claimed,
came off the public domain.
The State Detectives
have been at Saltwater considerably of
late and obtained much discriminating
evidence there. The land commission
ers here are disposed to think it rather
good joke on a Minneapolis surveyor
general that he should in his official ca
pacity certify to facts which form prima
facie evidence of mis- own completely in
the alleged frauds. The chief investi-
cation thus far conducted by the COM
mOnwealth detectives are in townships
6, 8, 10, IL and IL, in range
~ west. These townships are just
above Hayward, on the northern
limits of Burnett and Sawyer
counties, and on the creek which
form the headWaters of the st. CroiX
river, section that is the chief reliance
1oI lIllUeI LOT Ino IotlllWaler mil men,
but extensive tTespasS has also occurred
on the state park in Oneida county at
the headwaters of the Wisconsin river.
Timber trespassing has been known in
the state for many years, hence the
present revelations occasion no particu-
lar surprise. Republicans look upon
the whole matter with ridicule, claim
Ing that the prosecutions are for the
simple purpose making political capital
for the Democrats, and to evince their
reform tendency, but the land commits
sioners declare their honesty of purpose
and their intention to raise devil of a
time" with the pine pirates. They will
give no names, however.