>From the book, "Sawdust City" by Lois Barland is this excerpt .... Life in the Wisconsin Woods This is a true story told by John C. Barland when an old man. "It was in October, 1854, that John West and Sanders Cochrane, two young bachelors, known in the frontier venacular as Scotch and West, employed my little brother Tommie, a boy of 10 and myself, a boy of 13 to take our three yoke of oxen with two wagons, to take two loads of potatoes to the site of their prospective logging camp in the pine woods of the Wolf River. This river was a branch of the north fork of the Eau Claire River. The whole country was an absolute wilderness, not a stream was bridged nor a road was made, only a trail was blazed with just the bare possibility of squeezing thru between the trees. It was rather a daring thing for two little fellows to undertake, for the only knowledge we had of the country had been the tracing of our horses that had strayed far into the woods. The writing has often wondered at the confidence that seemed to be reposed in two such little boys, but Sanders Cochran, the young Scotchman, was an adventurous fellow and he and I had tramped and scouted together and he doubtless rated me higher than I deserved. Well, we cracked our whips, and away we went, I with old Buck and Berry and Rum and Brandy on the big wagon and little Tommie with Broad and Bright, on the lighter wagon. When we came to the fording of the Eau Claire thirty miles up stream there was a problem, for the opposite bank seemed a precipitous wall of sand. the problem was quickly solved however, for putting all three yokes onto one wagon and mounting the backs of the oxen, we crossed the deep water and, approaching the shore, we leaped to the ground and under stimulus of brandishing whips and stentorial yells, the brave oxen landed their cargo at last on level ground. It took seven days and nights to make that trip; not a sight nor sound of any human being, just the awful solemnity of the wilderness. The last night as we camped at Fall Creek in the deep gorge down by the river, the howling of the wolves made us think of home and we snuggled up closer together. It was shortly after the toting of which I have spoken to the camp on Wolf River that Scotch and West engaged me to go to a second camp which they were starting at Hamilton's Falls, on the north fork of the Eau Claire River. My job was to scale the logs and to put the bark mark onto each log, a pretty responsible task for a little boy of only 13. Our method of logging that winter, 1854, was to draw the whole tree to the rollway at the river bank where the tree was cross-cut and scaled and marked and rolled into the great rollway that rested on the ice below. For hauling the great tree from the stump to the rollway there was used just a single bob. This was of great size and strength. With three yokes of oxen on the bob, the leaders, one or two yoke, would draw the heavy butt onto the bunk, and when securely fastened, the three yoke would swing for the landing. For such a job as that a man of skill and power was needed and such was the young Scotch Canadian lumberjack, Bill Campbell. His three yoke of oxen, well fed, well groomed and well handled, spoke for him. A clean young fellow it was not much wonder that the little boy swamped in t he midst of the roaring camp should cling to him as to a brother. Bill had a fine rifle which he used to loan to me to go a hunting on the Sundays. Poor Bill, he had never learned to forgive an enemy, and years later, with the same gun, he enacted a tragedy, that saddened his own and other lives. The winter of 1854 was a notable one at this camp of Scotch and West. "Amooses' Band" of Indians 600 strong who roamed the woods of the Eau Claire, were that winter in mortal terror of the Sioux who only a short time before had invaded the Chippewa's land and killed and scalped. So Amooses' band decided to build and fortify a camp in close proximity to ours. This consisted of a stockade 8 feet high made of white pines, one foot in diameter, and split in two halves and loopholed. Young Scotch was well up in Indian lore, and he and I spent many an evening in the Indian camp. This was a relief to us for neither he nor I could endure the vileness and the obscenity of the logging camp. This is perhaps too sweeping an allegation for we had in our camp some Bohemian-German workers that were as fine as silk. Many was the day in that winter when my duties gave me leisure that I would pull the saw with young Andrew Kopp or Bill Brick, two of the finest young Bohemians. They lived to make their mark, and their grandchildren may be found here and there. In that early day the great Scandinavian race now so much in evidence with us, had hardly set a foot in Wisconsin. It was years later when our noble pioneer, Joseph Thorp and his wife made a pilgrimage over to Norway and preaching the gospel of Wisconsin, started that tide of emmigration, the marvel of the age, and to which we owe so much. For with their simple faith and their frugal ways, they have proved a redeeming feature in all our social life. With just a word more, and the writer has done with the narrative of a lumberjack of 13. +++++++++ And we'll read the rest of the story tomorrow! See you all then! -- Nance mailto:nsampson@spacestar.net