Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1910-01-20

from Emporium, Pa, to Marietta, SAID
Matthew Hays, the BinghamptoD con
tractor, the other day. "The raft was
owned by n. p. Ninard-"Prov." Min
ard, as everybody called him-and it con
taiued 80, 900 feet of the finest pine lum
Der. 1t was 1G0 feet long and 16 feet
wide, and was the last of many big RATS
that had been sent down the Sinuama-
honing into the West Branch of the Sus-
quehanna that spring. Minard, who is
one of the kindcst hearted and most gen
erous men | have ever met in quite a
long period Of constant contact with man
kind, still lives near Emporium and will
readily recall the dreadful strain that was
placed upon our nerves on that night Of
terror in the month Of April, more than
twenty-eieht years ago. | was working
for Minard and he and [ bad taken
many raft from Emporium to Mariot
ia. Ninard had charge OF the forward
end Of the raft and | Of the rear. Just
as we we're about to untasten the raft
preparatory to starting on our long Jour
uoy, a poor Irish woman, accompanied
by her two grown sons and lad Of
twelve yenrs. asked permission to ride on
the raft all the way down We gladly
granted her the favor, Of course. and they
quickly tumbIcd all their worldly posses
sioas Oh to the rafJ and cot aboard. Tb-
womans sons had been working on
rai road up in that section and thei'
mother had been cooNing Tor them.
None OF them could understand English
very well out learned from the woman,
when we got pretty we'll down toward
the month of the Sinnamahoning, that
they had neither money or food.
She was widow and she and the boys
had been struggling to get along in
strange country Fortune was against
them up there and they wanted to go
down where the country was not so
rough, and whore the prospects Of get
ting work right along were brighter. 1t
was Saturday morning when we started
from Emporium and everything went
along smoothly until we reached the
mouth Of the SinDamahoning, when we
fed the unfortunate passengers and took
dinner ourselves.
Then we drifted into the West Branch
of the Susquehanna and in the course Of
an hour it began to rain. | never saw
rain fall faster than it did Jurnga all that
gloomy April afternoon The poor wo-
man aud her sons were soOp drenched to
the skin, for there was no shelter on the
raft for any Of us, and we all had to
make the best of the unfortunate situa-
ton. About the middle Of the alter
noon we caught up to several other rats
that had started an hour or 50 before we
had, and re fastened our raft and three
Of the others together and hoated on in
feet The bouncing black bears, that
some Of the iumbermen had caught in
the mountains at the head OF Portage
creek. were chained few yards apart on
one Of the rats and these bears roared
pranced back and forth and ratified their
chains as we driltcd along. They made
such a racket that the inmates of every
house that We passed in sight Of came
out to see what the matter was Some
one suggested that the noisy bears be
dumped into the river for a change, but
the owners of the wild animals said that
the bears were worth at least eighty dol
lars apiece and that they did not pro-
pose to throw away that amount to please
any whimsical person on board a little
further on one of the bears broke his
fastenings and got to the rear of the raft
before his trick had been discovered, and
then there was such hooting and yell
ing over the beasts attempt to gain his
freedom that the animal seemed to be
dazed He hesitated about jumping in
to The water, but every person on the
four RATS, with the single exception of
the bears owner, hoped that he would
plunge in. While the bear was in the
attitude of getting ready to take cold
bath the man who owned him was not
idle. He made slip moose out of a
piece of rope and then he slyly tip-toed
up behind the bear and threw it over mis-
head, as the bear was gazing into the
stream from the rear of the raft. Even
then the bear did not see fit to plunge.
n moment later the owner of the bear
and two other raftsmen rushed up and
grabbed hold Of the rope and it wasn't
long before the bear, choking, pulling
and struggling back with all bis might,
was yanked back to the middle of the
raft by main strength AMI chained up
again 1t was an exciting incident OF
tine journey but not nearly as much so as
something that occurred before midnight
The rain continued t. fall uncommonly
fast. The river was overhowing its
banks and getting higher every hour. A
little before sundown we undertook tc
land. The current was so swift that
there were no eddies in the stream, and
landing there seemed to be out of the