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.
The snippets aren't meant to be representative or exhaustive, but they do hint at a deeper problem with life in a lumber camp. Out of a camp of 100, one was wicked. Well behaved lumberjacks rarely make history!
June 29, 1931's issue of the Lewiston Morning Tribune detailed two instances of drunken lumberjacks causing bodily harm. One instance was a car full of drunken lumberjacks throwing its passengers out. Twice the driver sent a passenger into the ditches. One was a 70 year old lumberjack who died because the driver was too drunk to realize he lost a passenger. Important information here is that the jacks were going from lumbercamp to lumber town and they had wheels.
In another article and in the same town of Orofino, a 40 year old H.E. Phar smacked Robert Leisure with a 2x4. He caused a gash, but the other jack would live.
All too often the paper would note that the lumberjack had no family. It's estimated that in 1900 56% of the lumberjacks were single. In a Nov 6, 1939 Milwaukee Journal article, a lumberjack falls victim to an irate farmer. The farmer killed a young lumberjack for associating with his daughter. The incident happened at the farmer's son's wedding.
It's been well documented that immigrants, especially from Eastern Europe, were ridiculed and segregated in the lumber camps. One story turned tragic, when a Russian lumberjack killed a newspaper editor after "friends" kept telling him the newspaper printed an embarrassing story about him. The article appeared on April 25, 1912.
A constant source of conflict in the lumberjack camp was the difference in estimated board feet cut by the jacks. The sawyers and jacks would always claim a higher number than the official company scaler. An interesting note absent of any commentary appears in the Telegraph-Herald on November 21, 1907. Cops captured a lumberjack who committed murder in Eau Claire. The victim was a scaler for a logging company. All that is stated is that the lumberjack was supposedly a roamer.
While camaraderie among lumberjacks seems to be a constant source of songs and literature, camps were rigid social structures. Each camp was often its own fiefdom according to Jeff Forester. In 1913, John Toben killed two deputies in his lumber camp. Toben went on the run, and he tried to obtain food from a lumber camp on the run. He didn't receive food or shelter in the other camp. The same year, a Harry Robertson attempted to forge orders for camp supplies. He shot the constable trying to arrest him.
The usual trifecta for a paper was drunkenness, mental illness, and being an immigrant. The Telegraph-Herald couldn't help but point out that the lumberjack who killed two women in Virginia, Minnesota happened to be Finnish. The Finnish lumberjack was "'apparently insane and possibly drunk."
Alcohol fueled fights in the camps. On September 19, 1935, a lumberjack, Bun Riley of Canada, was put to death for killing his three lumberjack associates "during a drunken orgy."
All of this pales in comparison to the plethora of articles about lumberjacks who killed their lover, killed for their lover, or killed because they didn't receive any love.
Many lumberjack camps had strict no alcohol rules. Most of the drunken behavior would happen when the lumberjack had an opportunity to visit the lumber town. This was usually just before the spring drive. Many of the articles not cited are dated in March. Yet many stories exist of lumber barons paying their workers in alcohol and perhaps worse, heroin and cocaine......
Sources:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eFcbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=j0sEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1391,5293408&dq=lumberjack+killed&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1eFVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YuADAAAAIBAJ&pg=6620,3220246&dq=lumberjack+killed&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vi5PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CU4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3087,1064995&dq=sawmill+owner+kills+farmer&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=MNtXAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LfYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6832,1549177&dq=sawmill+kills&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Z1EpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-GkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1425,1128832&dq=lumberjack+kills&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=m9tBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6652,1680779&dq=lumberjack+killed&hl=en
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http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=D1dFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_LsMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3394,3821811&dq=lumberjack+killed&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iehCAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tKsMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4401,7333472&dq=lumberjack+killed&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=II4tAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4J0FAAAAIBAJ&pg=5417,2865646&dq=lumberjack+murders&hl=en
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bLJQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NiIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6716,5045232&dq=crime+lumberjack&hl=en
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