The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1914-09-12
Crop in Connecticut River
Matches Another Crop in
State of Maine
STRENUOUS LIFE
OF LUMBER JACKS
Dynamite Sometimes Necessary to Re
move Jams-Mills Close at Bellows
Falls While Logs Go Over Dam
Threat to Obstinate Mill Owner.

Thousands of logs, logs big and logs
little, logs pushing, jamming, drifting,
lunging-covering a whole stream as
with great 1loor-this is the season 5
lumber drive on its way down the Con
necticut, says James Ernest King in the
Boston transcript. 1914 has brought n
record yield. Sixty million feet some
estimates say; eighty million say 9th
ers; 4 yield of spruce that viii bring
| 81 100000 when it is cut, and that is
worth a million dollars even as it lies
| in the river. The winter of 1923 was
| poor for cutting; the past winter has
| been excellent. SO one of the greatest
drives of recent years moves resistless
! ~ down the Connecticut-all the big
| yield of last winter, and all the Umbcr
that WASH t taken out in 1913.
Despite the size of the drive, the
| jacks have had good luck with it. The
| lumber is we'll advanced on its long pas
| sage from the Vermont hills where it
was grown, to the Massachusetts mills
| where it will be cut. On Monday morn
| ing the last log plunged over the dam
at Bellows Falls. Inside of three weeks
| the whole drive was carried past this
difficult point. Now only the falls at
| A'i at tlCbOlO bHIOSG StllOuS oDSjdClt w
its downward course down the river.
The logs will soon be piIing up at the
Mount Tom mills where they are ground
for paper pulp or sawed for lumber.
Jacks and the Vernon Castles.
- \ great floor of timber - Ell? Well.
let it stand as a mctaphor-there must
he some journalism in this article-but
as a floor of the common or garden
variety it S no safe underpinning for
YOU or me, timidly gentle reader. 1t Is
a floor of pitfalls, uneven and PREACHER
Gus, now yielding and now gripping as
in wise the men who walk upon it.
Yet there they 90. those lumber jacks,
jumping from one log to another, har-
Ipooning them with their long pronged
sticks, allied ''pcevies' or camp
dogs, breaking up jams, driving the
big fellows in the way that they should
go-and all as nimblv and easily as you
please, or as Mr.. and Mrs. Castle doing
their own walk on a polished floor in
their own privately controlled New
York.
TO the very edge of the falls the lum-
Der jacks advance, supported, it is true,
by the chained logs that form the sta
tionary border of the sluiceway. On
this narrow footing the jacks stand at
; the verge of the waterfall. watching
4 with a sort of contempt the big tim
, hers go plunging over the dam. If the
. descent at Bellows Falls were not in a
sheer perpendicular, the jacks would
ride over it Just as they shoot the lesser
rapids further upstream. His shoe-cleats
=, driven firmly into n good log, a jack
, would slide down any chutes that
Like the Timbers of a Wreck.
At Bellows Falls they can only stand
, patiently and watch the logs as they
drift slowly towards the dam. so slowly
. that their motion is almost impercepti
ble-aud as they are caught in the sud
den rush of the falls. plunge in a per
pendicular over the dam and swirl away
T into the rapids beneath.
But not all the logs swirl away
p That : why the Jacks stand and watch
Suddenly a great log viii drive over the
dam and send its head into the river ;:
bed with thud. sway for an instant
5 and stop, firmly caught between TIVE
4, rocks. Others come swiftly from behind
: The iammed log halts their course. Log
e pile upon logs. In ten minutes Il mon
y strous structure. as of some wrecke,
II ship, is thrown up in the river bed.
u A Jelly That Beats Jam.
= Then one thing may happen or an
$ other must. Either the sudden impac
ar of new log will dislodge the Who'll
.e structure 5 equilibrium and send tn
logs again on their way or the jar
must be dynamited \ little explosiv
- Jelly, charged into a water-tight cart
. ridge, with a water-tight fuse, will pu
| any jam out of business. For Away
there is a single log, known as 9TH
| key which supports the whole OF
y struction. But dynamiting is costly
it destroys much good timber-an
therefore is used as a last resort. Onl
| four or five times through the night an
as many by day does the visitor at Be
lows Falls hear the crash of an eXplC
sion, the ripping and tearing of WOO,
and the dull thud of falling logs, tina
mean dynamite.
| Some two hundred men are employee
by the Connecticut Valley Lumber con
| panv to manage the drive. Most {
them are French Canadians. p. |. s
they used to be called, truly a name ft
Il Prince Edward Islanders, but quite GEL
4 orally applied to anyone who came fro
Il over the border. The lumber jacks al
i hardy lot, skilful through long pra
81 tice and fearless by nature. Farmer
81 tramps, jobless mechanics-any men ca
s. be of use in the cutting season, bl
Il when the SHOWS are melting and I'll
4 drive must be started, then is the tin
al for show of hands. Only the best an
M surest hands are picked.
81 Six Men Killed This Year
d Danger is the lumber jack s boon cor
81 paniOn all the while he is following Il
i drive. Six men were killed this seast
. in a single accident on the Connectic1
River drive. In all weathers the wol