At 08:44 PM 12/19/2001 -0600, you wrote: >My great-grandpa Elmer A. Payne was shown in the 1910 census of Remington, >Wood Co. as a "runner on dredge". Does anyone know what a >runner would be, and what the dredge actually was? > >Family lore says that great-grandpa was a lumberjack foreman, however I've >not found anything to support that. > >Deb G ~~~~~~~~ "Runner on dredge" sounds like the 1910 census taker meant dredge operator. The way I understand it, dredge crews worked with steam shovels and by hand, to drain land with high water tables, hoping to turn the wetland into profitable farm land by placing a series of drainage ditches throughout the wetlands in central Wisconsin. Later during the USA's Great Depression of the 1930's, the State Dept of Natural Resources and Federal Government's Fish & Wildlife Service obtained the land, removed the dredges and allowed the land to return to being a marsh. Thin soils, a short growing season and high water tables best suited this land for growing trees, waterfowl, and other wildlife, not corn or dairy cows. Much of this land is now part of Sandhill Wildlife Area and the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, and there are some crumbling house foundations still visible within their borders. As an aside, the restoration of a migratory flock of endangered whooping cranes in Wisconsin is an ongoing project at the Necedah Refuge, something you may have read about in the news in the past 6-8 weeks. Circa 1910, it was common for farmers or other seasonal laborers, new immigrants and single men to work in the logging camps during the winter. Your ancestor Elmer Payne may have been a camp foreman during a few winters, while his occupation the rest of the year that he reported to the census taker was dredge operator. Many of our ancestors relied on their farms for food and housing, while the lumber camp wages paid the taxes and other bills that required cash payment...such as a downpayment on a farm, or ship tickets to buy passage for more family members to come to the USA from the Old Country. If you would like to learn more about the lumberjacks and their lives, ask at your local library or bookstore for books such as: The Lumberjack Frontier: The Life of a Logger in the Early Days of the Chippeway by Walker D. Wyman (1969) Empire in Pine: The Story of Lumbering in Wisconsin 1830-1900 by Robert F. Fries (1989) The North Woods Journal of Charles C. Hamilton: An Englishman in Wisconsin's Lumber Camps (1992, published by Dave Engel's River City Memoirs, ISBN: 0-942495-24-1) The Wisconsin Frontier by Mark Wyman (1998, ISBN 0-253-33414-4). Joan Coordinator Adams Co. WIGenWeb http://www.rootsweb.com/~wiadams/adams.htm and Marquette Co. WIGenWeb http://www.rootsweb.com/~wimarque/wimarque.htm Professional Genealogist http://www.rootsweb.com/~wiwood/resource/r-joanb.htm