Lumberjacks Gone Mad

      It's tough to provide a sketch of a lumberjack. The more I read about lumberjacks, the more I realize the pitfalls of poverty, solitude, and proliferation of drugs. While some lumberjacks were transients, others had nowhere else to go. Some had no family or relatives, and other had too many wives or women who called them honey.

          This article comes from another article I'm developing. The other article is about the sex trafficking that brought young girls to lumber camps to serve as prostitutes. An all too common reality of life in the camps was the presence of alcohol fueled violence and crimes. This article talks about some of the murders that made papers in the early 1900s. Papers were quick to point out two things: a. the murderer was a lumberjack and b. the murderer was a immigrant lumberjack.

A tale of my Raftin' Grandfather

Yesterday, a guest shared an amazing story about one of his perhaps his (great?) grandfather. The transcription of the conversation:

"William Mac Litchfield had timber rights in Wisconsin (1). He had a partner. They cut the timber, felled the logs. They floated the logs down the Wisconsin River into the Mississippi River. One bad winter, can't remember the year, there was no snow (5). They couldn't do a log drive. They had to fire people to debark the logs to stop the logs from rotting. The partnership went bust. My (great?) grandfather sold to his partner. 

My (great?) grandfather continued working for his partner as a cook on the log raft. Eventually he became a carpenter in the winter and a pearl fisherman on the Mississippi in the summer. He was born in Mather, Wisconsin (6). He was born in 1838. My dad was born in 1897. I can't remember when my (great?) grandfather was a raftman, but I would say in the 1860's (5)." 

Transcribed from Bill Litchfield of Charleston, SC by Matt Parbs on August 21, 2013

Notes (given the nature of genealogical research, not necessary all true: 

1. Depending on the record, (great?) grandpa spelled his name both William Mac and William Mack Litchfield. While ancestry.com is not gospel, there is a strong possibility this is the William Mack Litchfield:

2. William Mack died in Winona, Minnesota in 1922. He was buried in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. 

3. According to other documents, William and his wife came to Mowers County in 1856 and settled on a 250 acre farm in section 34. 

4. According to this site, William M Litchfield shares a distantly connected ancestor to the great Abraham Lincoln. 

http://bransoncook.systemaxonline.com/gedcoms/lincoln/pafg14.htm

5. Based off the literature here (http://www.tomclough.com/genealogy/p332.htm), we can say that William M. arrived in Wisconsin in time for the 1870 Census. Since this was the case, I can say with certainty that his grandfather lost his hat in 1869's "The Big Log Jam." In Weyerhaeuser's biography, there is a tale of the 1869 winter being so mild that by spring, there wasn't enough water to float the logs down the Chippewa into the Mississippi.  The low waters caused 150 million feet of logs to pile up and the logs stacked 30 feet high above the river's surface. Many lost their hats in spring of 1869. 

6. In 1870, it is apparent he lived in the part of Wisconsin that is now Wisconsin Dells. They lived in Kilbourn City, Wisconsin. One might suspect that his partner was his wife's husband, a Seth Burgess Wing. The Wings, along with the Litchfields, "all" hailed from VT. The Wings moved to Columbia County, WI in 1866. 

William's sister, Luthera, married a Stephen Wing in 1857. He died "from exhaustion upon the march" in the Civil War in 1864. Luthera later married Seth in 1866. After their marriage, the Wings moved to WI in late 1866. One could assume that William M. followed or led. 

  Story Two                                                                                                                                           

    Another guest regaled our staff with a mini history about his family's lumber connections. His father, Earl Nielsen, grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His dad was a river raftsman. His grandfather, Samuel N. Nielsen, was the secretary and treasurer of the Bruer Lumber Company. The guest called his grandfather an owner of the lumber company, and Samuel was a co-owner. He purchased stock and became a board member of the corporation.

Henry Bruer, the founder of Bruer Lumber Company, was born in Bancroft, Iowa in 1884.

Recorded 8/8

What is in this USPS Box?

Wow, what a treasure trove I stumbled upon in our filing cabinet. While looking for who knows what, I saw the USPS eagle staring up at me. Attached to the priority mail box was a simple letter from a Marilyn. I would have to guess it's the same Marilyn thanked in Felix Adler's biography.

Marilyn wanted our Bob Seger to know that "Years ago Al Bowers gave us a lot of old paper clippings. These have to do with the sawmills and log rafting, etc. I think they would be better appreciated at the sawmill museum- if they can use them somehow."

Well Marilyn, we will. I scanned all of the clippings in, and below you find my favorite quote:

         "There was no tougher creature than a raftsman. His job in itself was harrowing, dangerous, and it                   seemed to spawn an ego of recklessness within him. On the raft, he drank hard whiskey, cursed,                   worked exhausting hours and never shaved and rarely bathed. Raftsmen were ribald devils, often                   singing or calling to the girls on the shore of the little towns they passed, and a favorite ditty (scrubbed           up a bit here) went something like:

           "Buffalo gals, ain't
           you comin' out tonight,
           comin' out tonight, comin'
           out tonight."'

The men who ran Clinton's Sawmills

     While it is easy to be swept away by the lumber barons, one cannot forget the hundreds and thousands of men who operated the mills. Below are found sketches of the workers, mainly foremans and upper management, who ran the sawmills.

B.C. Brown: A native of NY, he came to Clinton in 1865. In 1872, he became the foreman of Young's lower mill. Brown supposedly patented a splat and shingle mill used in all of Clinton's mill.

Judson Hyde: A native of NY, he was a saw-filer in Young's upper mill. Judson served as the Secretary for the Odd-Fellows lodge. The lodge was on a Harding block in 1874 when Judson was the Secretary. He was also involved with a civic organization called Clinton Encampment, another? Odd Fellows congregation.

George T. McClure: George was the foreman for Lamb's Riverside mill.

John D.C. McClure: Sources differ, but John started as a saw filer in 1869 or 1870 for C. Lamb & Sons. He worked for them until 1883. During that time, he saw the first band saw installed in the Lamb mill. The mill consisted of, or John oversaw, two bands and two gang saws. When John started, "the science of saw filing was in its infancy" either in reference to band saws or all types of saws (B, 67). In 1883, John left for the Lyons Lumber Company where he worked for four years. In 1887, John left for the Southern mills where he became a foreman and a filer at the Woodworth Lumber Company in Bivins, Texas. He later went to Monroe, La to file. John in the late 1890s went to work for the Gates Lumber Company in Wilmar, Arkansas.  Through his life, John supposedly filed saws for 55 years. He was called the South's best filer.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~arbradle/letters/pontius_postcards.html

David W. Switzer: Born in NY in 1833, he came to Clinton in 1857 and started working in the Lamb mills. He eventually became the foreman of the C. Lamb & Son's Stone Mill. According to other notes, Switzer's daughter, Hazel Harriet Gertrude Switzer married William Mowbray Browning in 1902. Hazel was apparently known as Effie?

John Taylor: John worked for the William J. Young & Co as their machinist foreman. Born in NY, John learned his trade in Worcester, MA.

W.M. Taylor: The foreman of W. Young's upper mil.  During the Civil War he fought for Co. H, 6th Ind. V.L.  and the 2nd Ind. Bat. After sixteen battles, he came to Clinton. He started as an engineer for Young.


Martin White: As an employee of the Young Company, this native Irishman was the foreman of the loading cars. Martin was a city councilman. A Catholic, he was president of the Roman Catholic Total Abstinence Society.

"My recollections of the Curtis Factory"

 "I'm Don Lines, formerly of Fulton, Illinois. Quite a few of us from Fulton worked for the Curtis Factory. You see I'm originally from Fulton, but I live in Forrest Park. The railroad took me to the suburbs of Chicago.

Anyways, I worked for the Curtis Company from 1949 to 1962. I started working in the sash factory on the third floor. I started working for an old German fellow. I think his name was Heine Hake. I kept time for him. He made special order sashes. They were round windows, with half sashes. You could open the top or the bottom half. You could only special order them.

  After awhile I was moved to the main office. I scheduled shipments. My boss was Bob Bellis. Mike Grimm, I don't know his first name, scheduled the production. He would decide how much inventory to order. Over in the sales department there was Warren Rosenburg. He ran the sales. There was another gentleman, he was upper management.

 In 1962, the Curtis Company didn't have enough work to keep all of us employed. They put us on summer leave. Now I knew the new generation running the factory weren't interested in keeping the company alive. So I got a job with Chicago-Northwestern.

Let's see Curtis opened in 1866 and closed in 1965. The flood of '65 marked the end of Curtis. It was great times."


Recorded August 4th at 2:30 pm by Matt Parbs from Don Lines.  Original transcription in folder 2013.6

"My brother was hitchhiking from Mount Vernon, Iowa one day. G.L. Curtis himself picked him up and told him if he ever needed a job to visit him. Well after college my brother went to Curtis to work."

Overhead by docent on August 7th at 4:30pm. Guest left before could be recorded.