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The Logging Era is dedicated to those pioneering Severt's that worked and died toiling in the Wisconsin wilderness, forever changing the Wisconsin landscape from a forestland to a dairyland.

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In 1872 F.W. Kingsbury & Brother of Stevens Point built the first saw mill in Auburndale, and it operated steadily until 1880 when it was destroyed by fire.

In 1874 Hoskins and Roe erected a steam driven saw mill. It was then purchased by Robert Connor who later added a planing and shingle mill as well as a heading and stave factory. The Connor Saw Mill produced 10,000,000 feet of lumber a year, operating a double shift.

The arrival of railroad service and these two mill operations signaled the turning point in the economy of North Wood County, because it was no longer necessary to depend on the Wisconsin River for a market for logs and settler’s produce. The several logging camps near the Village required all the potatoes, pork, and beef the settlers could supply.

Robert Connor, who had started with an Indian Trading Post where the bank now stands, erected a large store in 1875, and was made express agent when the railroad built through the town. By 1874 there were 30 dwellings, five stores, a blacksmith shop, two saw mills, schools, and three churches erected in clearings along the railroad.

This pioneer village inspired the Connors to build other mills which started other communities. Robert Connor, the oldest of the Connor Brothers, chose to remain in the lumber business when his brothers moved to Iowa and Kansas. But when his health failed he called his son, William, home from college. William had already worked in the mills and camps, and soon developed great judgment in buying timber land.

As years went by, R. Connor and Company grew into a corporation which was formed in 1890. By 1894 the Company was operating two mills in Clark County, and contracting the production of seven more. Then came the panic and depression from which few saw mill operations in Wisconsin survived. W.D., as he was called, believed that demand for lumber would return and he succeeded in buying timber at low prices. In fact, when business improved most of the hardwood lumber in Northern Wisconsin was owned by three companies, which had managed to survive.

In the meantime, the young lumberman had purchased timber north and west of the Rice Lake flowage and started a band mill at a Northwestern Railroad siding which he named Stratford after his birthplace in Canada. Later W.D. Connor, Sr., started the Marathon County Railroad. This gave him shipping points on three railroads and he decided to move the main office to Marshfield so he could more easily travel to all the mills. Also for the first time he erected private telephone lines from Marshfield to the offices in Auburndale and Stratford. Although his first fortune was made on a rising lumber market after the panic of 1892, he did very well a few years later when he sold large timber tracts in Minnesota and Arkansas. By 1898 he was buying timber in Forest, Ashland, Iron, and Oneida Counties. In 1900 he started a two band saw mill at Laona (which was 100 miles north of Green Bay on the Lake Shore Division of the C & NW) in order to convert enough timber sales to pay the taxes and carrying charges each year on the vast stands of choice timber he was blocking up for the future. Later, he was buying timber in California and British Columbia. It was this vision which made the Connor operations of today possible. In 1898 W.D. and his brother, Robert, Jr., had packed in 60 miles north from the railhead to cruise and buy timber. For weeks they lived off scant supplies and game until they found a level mill and townsite in between a chain of beautiful lakes which made the head waters of the Rat River. By construction of a dam they controlled the level of a log storage pond. With the first lumber sawed, he built 100 houses, a boarding house, schools, churches, and soon the first public library in Forest County. About this time W.D. Connor, Sr., was elected President of the American National Bank of Marshfield, and the First National Bank of Stevens Point.

Later, Connor Co. organized the Laona and Northern Railroad which connected with the C&NW at Laona and the Soo Line at Laona Junction. Next, they built a shingle mill to consume the cedar logs and a few years later they erected a large flooring factory to cut up the lower grades of maple and birch lumber. Shingle tow was baled for sale to the nurseries for packing, and shavings for cattle bedding. In 1928, large motorized sifters were installed to supply the demand for kiln dried sawdust in various screen meshes. In 1929, the first maple wood flour 80 to 100 mesh, was produced for cleaning and dyeing of furs. During the depression short hardwood lumber accumulated and after 1932, this was worked up into children’s furniture which is now sold from Coast to Coast. After 1950, hardwood plywood and kitchen cabinets were manufactured in a plant at Wausau.

Until the Wisconsin Central Railroad laid rails through North Wood County in the fall of 1871, there was no market for logs or lumber unless you were near the Wisconsin River or a tributary which would float pine, spruce, or cedar to market. Consequently, most everyone wanted to live on or near the big rivers. Even Mill Creek was used during high water each spring to drive the pine. Mill Creek ran through the property of Albert Severt in Auburndale and in later years was commonly called "Shit Creek" because Marshfield dumped raw sewage in it.

This meant that the river towns had the saw mills to convert logs into lumber rafts which were then taken as far south as St. Louis via the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers. Even in high water, the rafts would get hung up on sand bars and huge boulders. Getting through Wisconsin Dells near Kilbourn took tremendous strength, courage and some lives!

When pine logs became scarce or were too far from the rivers, it was easy to understand why inland settlements did not flourish, but the Wisconsin Central Railroad soon changed this. After 1870, mills and settlements came alive along the route of the railroad through Wood County. Pine logs were delivered and decked up at railroad sidings or mills in the winter as soon as the oxen could skid them out. In a year or so ice roads were developed, and four horse teams with an extra snatch team on the grade would bring logs in for miles on each side of the railroad.

Building an ice road was a great engineering feat in early times! First it had to be laid out on the shortest route that would avoid the hills or grades. Following the valleys and across marshes and swamps was preferred for these roads, but after the first cold weather in the fall, the swamp road had to be "tamped" to get a good freeze and foundation.

The sure footed oxen were used to skid and clear for these swamp roads and often after the first hard freeze at night, a camp crew would be turned out to walk back and forth on a marsh road so the frost would go deep enough to hold horses and sleighs as early as possible as winter came on.

After this, the water tank sleigh was invented to gradually build up the ice over a foot thick to carry heavier loads and survive the usual January thaw. One of the worst early jobs was building and icing long sleigh roads nightly. Heavy wooden ice-rutters drawn by horse or oxen were used to form the tracks. The ice-rutter was followed by the water tank sleigh to create layers of ice on the ruts. Otto Sievert (Severt) was one of the operators on the water sleigh. These had side barrels to refill the tank sleigh from chipped, icy streams. The road’s deep ruts could sometimes survive spring break-ups into late April or May. Sleighing was cold, so affluent farmer-loggers sported bearskin coats; the more affluent like Frank Markee, near Stratford, proudly wore buffalo coats and horsehide mitts. Building an ice road was a great engineering feat in early times! First, it had to be laid out on the shortest route that would avoid the hills or grades. Following the valleys and across marshes and swamps was preferred for these roads, but after the first cold weather in the fall, the swamp road had to be "tamped" to get a good freeze and foundation.

Heavy hauling was usually possible through the March break-up, and weather permitting, even into April!

The "rutter" was developed to cut and maintain a deep groove to hold the sleigh runners. Then, if there were some "downhill hauls" a sander was used to keep the load from going too fast and having a wreck.

Not all the "monkeys" were in the village saloon. Every ice road required a "monkey"...a reliable older man who did nothing but maintain the road by chopping out manure and sticks that froze in a rut which might slow down sleighs or wear out teams pulling heavy loads.

If a load got stuck or froze while loading, men used heavy mallets to loosen the runners and help the team get the sled started. Sometimes a block or a double block and line had to be used. Also, the snow had to be plowed off the ice roads with a team plow or scoop or later with a heavy road grader and the ruts had to be swept clean. Most hard work with shovels and scoops was required at turn-offs and landings. Some years, in the snow belts, especially in Northern Michigan, camps had to be closed and logs left in the woods until they could be "found" after the break-up.

In the days of rivermen and log drives, naturally floatable pine, spruce and cedar was in highest demand. Hardwood was worth little except that basswood was used for heading and pails. Settlers often burned their hardwood logs to clear land for farming. As pine grew more scarce, hemlock was used more in building, especially after most of the tamarack was infected and died off in Wisconsin at the end of the century.

The advent of the railroads across the state made hardwood more available. At first, prices were very low and the freight to distant cities would be more than the invoice for the lumber.

The invention of the steam log hauler or "snow snake" before World War 1, delivered more hardwood logs to railroads and mills. This was the forerunner of the caterpillar tractor which took over the skidding and hauling of logs to mills and/or railroad landings after World War 1. The paper industry developed the first big market for spruce, balsam and hemlock small logs, or shorts as they were called, and began using some popple pulp wood, and even some saw mills slabs and chips from peeled softwood logs in the 1920’s. They began buying hardwood pulpwood after World War II which gave farmers a new market for small logs and Weyerhaeuser began using popple or aspen, in the manufacture of their fiber board at Marshfield in earlier years. In the late 1870’s, the Menasha Wooden Ware and Hardwood stave and heading factories did much to create the first demand for hardwood.

The Wisconsin Central Railroad and the Northwestern and Omaha Railroads began building branches or feeder lines to Wisconsin Rapids, Arpin, Vesper, Greenwood, Loyal, and Athens, and connections with Wausau and the main line at Merrilan Junction which opened up much country between the rivers and also encouraged summer logging. Before good roads and trucks, a few loggers tried using small steel cars with "V" wheels on wood pole rails and later huge wagon wheels that lifted one end of the log off the ground.

The big early change in summer logging came with short line railroads leading from the wood to the mills. The branches leading into the timber used pole ties and could be quickly moved from one forty acres to another. These branches were built with very little or no ballast, or just strong enough to support a small gear locomotive of "Lima" and small "Russell" cars. Sometimes a narrow gauge road bed was used, but more often it was standard gauge so car loads could be transferred to any main line when necessary.

Thus, the Marathon County Railroad was built east from Stratford and north of Rice Lake flowage by the Connor Company, and the Laona and Northern connected with both the Soo Line and the Northwestern Railroad in Forest County.

After the railroad logging came the primitive truck road which was followed by heavy all season gravel roads. At first, light loads were placed on the heavier truck frames until the "semi" was developed for log hauling. Permanent gravel roads are now used in selective cutting areas so trucks can go in anytime for big blowdowns or the subsequent cuts.

Until small caterpillar tractors were developed for skidding logs, or until about 1925, many teams were required for this work. The steam, and then the gas and diesel engine, has long since taken the place of teams for loading railroad cars and decking at landings and mills. Small jobs still used gin poles and teams for loading sleighs, but they too disappeared as power devices on the trucks were developed for loading and the McGiffert and Slide team loaders were a thing of the past as trucks took over in the woods. The Northwest gas shovel and other types were converted to hi-decking with the addition of long booms.

Thus the Auburndale farm after 1885 became a headquarters, or horse farm, and was equipped with several large stables, a blacksmith shop and a harness repair shop. Two men were employed after spring break- up, sorting and overhauling the harnesses which were returned from up to ten camps so they would be ready for the next long winters work.

The horses were also returned to Auburndale from each camp and the mares would raise their colts on pasture, and gradually be put back on grain and work on the farm to keep them in condition for camp.

A large, cleared farm was required to furnish the field work necessary and gradually it took in 1,200 acres on all sides of Auburndale. Long before the use of commercial fertilizer was common, hardwood ashes were used to apply potash and lime. When no longer available near Auburndale, ashes were shipped from Laona in gondola cars. Crop rotation was practiced from the beginning so that clover, and later alfalfa, was plowed under to furnish nitrogen. The Auburndale farm, owned by W.D. Connor, was one of the first to inoculate for alfalfa. Long before hybrid corn seed was available, the best ripe ears were carefully picked for next year’s seed and the balance used for fattening beef cattle and hogs.

Several silos were filled each fall with corn silage and carloads of steers were brought and put on feed. A slaughter house was located at the north end of the farm where each winter cattle and hogs were dressed out for shipment to the logging camps in Wisconsin and Michigan.

"W.D.", Robert’s son, combined the farms into one after 1885, and each spring he would choose his most promising young camp foreman, about March 25, to organize the farm work. He was followed by his brothers Robert and Rueben. Thus were developed some great farmers like: Bill Drollinger, the Baltus and Schultz brothers, the Kundingers, and the eight able sons of Louis Aschenbrenner, all of whom over a span of 80 years worked on, and ran, the Company farms at Auburndale and Laona.

Since the Company obtained as many horses as possible each winter in Wood and Marathon Counties, W.D. Connor started up-grading the supply by offering the services of the best shire studs he could obtain. During the breeding season a stallion would be hitched to a sulkey and driven to each village in North Wood, and Marathon Counties on certain days as advertised in advance. In three years the office record would show who had young horses available and those purchased would be broke and started on light work. As an example of how the quality could be raised, the company raised 30 or more colts each year from their own mares. As a better example, purebred shire mares were purchased, and Royal Patch, who had placed second at the International Horse Show, sired colts that weighed up to 2,100 pounds at age four. To further prove what could be done these colts were shown each year at several county and state fairs. The old round barn at the Marshfield Fair Grounds was built by the Connor Company originally to display the Auburndale farm stock. By the fall of 1917, Connor shires were taking most of the money at Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois horse shows. George O’Brien Sr., known as DOC in Auburndale, was in charge of all the show stock and as they made the fair circuit in a Palace Railroad Horse Car, he was ably assisted by Ed Hamburger and Joe Aschenbrenner.

Camp lodging provided "muzzle loader" double bunks or also double beds, at first mattressed with straw ticks, but in later days with regular mattresses. There were few other comforts. Wooden "deacon" benches were used for lounging.

At first, logging was a seasonal activity. Every fall the red-shirted lumberjacks gathered in camps to prepare for the winter’s work. Some were experienced woodsmen who had learned the trade in the east and who stayed at it year after year. Others were farmers or farm laborers, many of them newly arrived immigrants, who had free time and needed money. For most of these men, one winter in the north woods was enough. The pay was hardly worth the long hours, the monotonous routine, and the back-breaking exertion. The crews had to chop the trees, trip the fallen timber, cut the logs into suitable lengths, load them on ox sleds, drive these over runways of ice or packed snow to a stream bank, and pile the logs on the edge of the frozen stream. In the spring, with the thawing and flooding, the log drive got under way. Down river went the logs, to be caught and stored in booms, or reservoirs, which were enclosed by strings of timber. The drive might be held up by a log jam, especially in times of low water. One of the worst jams occurred in 1869, when a boom above Chippewa Falls broke and let go such a rush of logs that they could not clear the rapids. With the passage obstructed, other logs were caught. Finally the accumulation rose, in places, as high as thirty feet, and it backed up for fifteen miles.

At a boom, the logs were sorted in accordance with log marks, very similar to cattle brands, indicating ownership. The logs might go to mills in the immediate vicinity, or they might be consigned to mills farther downstream. In the latter case they would usually make the rest of the trip in the form of rafts. Those heading down the Mississippi would (after 1865) be combined into large rafts on reaching that river and would be towed the rest of the way by steamboat.

The early lumbermen were interested only in pine. It was in demand, being easy to work and resistant to rot. Besides, it could be floated down the streams; the oak, maple or birch would sink. Most of the Wisconsin lumbermen came from the pineries of the eastern states or the Maritime Provinces and brought their practiced techniques with them. Steadily they increased their output and by 1870, Wisconsin had reached fourth place among the lumbering states. During the 1890s it kept ahead of all others in the production of white pine. Lumbering, instead of flour milling, was now Wisconsin’s most important manufacturing industry as judged by the value of the annual product.

Keeping camps supplied with an adequate labor force was no easy task.

"It seemed that there were always three crews - those in camp, those on the way to camp, and those on the way back to town", Gordon R. Connor recalls. Periodically, the "jacks" would leave to "blow their roll" on wine, women, and song in nearby towns.

Thus it was, that in the 1880’s Marshfield (soon thereafter a sedate, well-settled town) became a Mecca for fighting Irish "jacks" who staged regular main street fights every Saturday night, of which the "History of Wood County" dryly recorded, "If an admission were charged, a goodly sum would have been realized".

Logging town taverns were almost the only private enterprise not financed by the lumber companies. Auburndale, Marshfield, Stratford, and later Laona, had their share. In the north, Hurley, Wisconsin became the "sin and gin" magnet for northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan lumberjacks. "Hayward, Hurley, and Hell" was the description of northern Wisconsin high spots. Come Monday morning a quota of lumberjacks could be seen loaded like cordwood aboard flat cars headed back to many lumber company camps.

It was the job of foremen or supervisors to round up needed skills in men. In his first Laona days, T. L. Rasmussen, later long-time Connor Forest Industries’ treasurer, had the dubious pleasure of meeting Soo Line trains at Laona Junction for the men hired by "man-catchers". Foremen like Sterling or Forest Tipton, would search the taverns for men willing and able to handle the life of a logger.

The tavern keepers cooperated with the "man-catchers". With a toe nudging at sleeping men in the "snake-pit" they would say: "Here’s a teamster; there’s a barn boss. That one in the corner is a cookie; here’s a filer, and the next ones are sawers". Some of the selectees’ might bolt, even after they were given a sobering drink, or unless their pack sacks were locked in car trunks before they were securely taken to see a company doctor for a physical before going to camp.

This, it must be added, was a way of life - expected and accepted in the far north country. Even sheriffs or assistant sheriffs occasionally collected "man-catcher" fees. The "jacks" had invariably exhausted their money - or had been "rolled" in the rougher places - so were once more ready for camp, if the cooking was good. They worked hard; they played hard.

They came in advance of the Wisconsin Central (Soo Line) Railway’s 1872 line northward from the Fox River to Superior. The railroad would break the previous patterns of river settlements and transportation.

1871 was the year of the Chicago fire, and of the far worse holocaust of Wisconsin’s Peshtigo fire that burnt over 1,000,000 acres and took 1,000 lives. It was the period of post-Civil War surging westward and urban expansion. This created national timber demands which would level state forests for decades to come.

Westward expansion brought pioneers eager for free Homestead Act acreage consisting of 160 acres, if cultivated for five years, or cheap land grant sales at $1.50 or $1.25 per acre, available from Wisconsin’s land offices at Green Bay, Mineral Point, Bayfield and other centers.

Woodland glades rang with axes as settlers raced to convert the obstacle forest to homesteads and to one of America’s greatest dairylands and still pay for their lands by meeting timber needs of the nation.

Into this land of Stockbridge Indians, Chippewas, Winnebagoes, or a few Sioux, poured other settlers as the Wisconsin Central in 1872 was laid north at one mile per day, with 2,000 men, 600 horses, and 2,816 hand hewn ties per mile. The railroad would ease supply, subsistence, trading, and transportation problems.

Free land or bargain acres, with months to pay, attracted hardy hardworking Irish, Scotch, German, and Austrian settlers into this Wood County area.

In the woods danger was ever present. There could be animals or other unexpected hazards. There was hot or freezing weather; stinging horse flies, mosquito swarms, and wood ticks, to mention only a few.

Tree limbs or branches falling without warning were "widow-makers". Felling timber in, or along a path, was a major hazard. Everything associated with the "jack" occupation was a hazard.

The lumberjacks, whether in woods or camp, had a lingo all their own which enriched the American language in their more printable phrases. They had a remarkable ingenuity in thinking up new tools, which clever camp blacksmiths working with the "wood-butcher" (camp carpenters) readily fashioned for them.

Early Auburndale settlers’ names include O’Brien, Dawson, Medenwaldt, Schultz, Aschenbrenner, Baltus, Kieffer, Kissingers, Schuster, Sievert* (sic) (Severt), Gerg, Kotlow, Herman, Kundingers, Kennedy, Pankratz, Berdan, Coon, Mohan and Morse. Here, after building shelters, summers were spent clearing land, pulling stumps, planting crops, and in the winter working lumber camps - a hard way of life.

Until the railroad opened new markets, Wisconsin forests had seen logging of only the great pines. Only pines and cedar could float to mills or market. Intermixed hardwoods had been considered worthless; the majestic tracts of oaks or maples often were burned off as useless, or in the name of progress for farm settlements.

Tall tales of the long - gone logging camps were told and retold - stories of Paul Bunyan, who tied a rope to his ax handle, whirled the ax around his head, and cut down forty acres of pine with every stroke; stories of Babe, Paul’s blue ox, the tips of whose horns were so far apart that lumberjacks strong clothes-lines from one tip to the other and hung out their clothes to dry. Apparently few, if any, of the Paul Bunyan tales originated with the actual lumberjacks. Most were the creations of an imaginative advertising man and other comparatively recent authors of instant folklore. It is an authenticated fact, however, that Paul Bunyan is buried in Wisconsin, near Wausau. Obviously, Paul was a fairly large man, for the dirt on his grave made a pretty high pile; it formed Rib Mountain, or so goes local folklore.

Food, and it’s preparation was quite an event! From 3:30 to 4:00 AM cooks had been preparing breakfast, long before the 5:00 AM cry of "roll out, it’s daylight in the swamp", or the blare of a goodly four foot long dinner horn. Sometimes it was a "gut hammer", an iron triangle beaten with an iron stick, that was an equal arouser.

If a camp lacked meat, it was out of business! Anton Schuster, Stratford store clerk and later Laona store manager, recalled early days in Stratford when oxen freely roamed the muddy streets during late winter. From the company store it was his job to bring meat to the camps. But, during one week of muddy roads the meat supplies from Swift and Company never arrived. Tony was torn by fear of God - "thou shalt not steal" - and equally, by loyalty to provide for the boss.

In desperation he finally seized and carved up a roaming ox and took it to camp without mentioning the origin of the meat. Not a word was ever said!

At breakfast there were pork chops, steaks, pies, cakes, doughnuts, sausage, bacon, cereal, flapjacks with syrup and big molasses cookies. Except for cereal or pancakes, dinner provided more of the same, with ‘kraut, baked beans, rutabagas and cheeses. Raisin pie was a favorite, even if neophytes could be dissuaded from their position by remarks about ‘ not being able to tell the raisins from the flies".

"No talking" was the universal lumber camp rule. The men ate silently, except to ask for a passing plate. The cooks wanted them out of the way and the companies wanted them on the job. Charles Koski says: "We learned to eat awful fast - a hard habit to break". They ate even faster when the lunch sleighs, called swing-dingles, took blanketed hot food to the woods where below zero weather almost froze the beans to the plate.

In camp, tin plates and mugs were always placed upside down on the groaning tables. White crockery was a later refinement. When finished, the cookie, (an assistant cook,) and the bull cook who did the chores, attacked the stacked plates and shook the silver dry in large hemp flour sacks. Bubbling hot water barrels steaming next to the wood stoves gave a warm, cozy sound on wintry days. A good cookie could awe any housewife. It was customary to order 300 pounds of sugar at a time to satisfy pastry needs and if the cooks weren’t good, they might have been chased from camps by the "Jacks" for their poor cooking.

"Bull Cooks" hauled water and wood and chopped wood piles among their chores. It was they who lit early morning fires. The men inside the sometimes frosted inner walls of bunkhouses awaited those fires.

It is interesting to note that Anna Severt Ashbeck, also a sister of Otto, August, and John Severt, worked as a cook in a logging camp for several winters. The exact camps are not known, but would likely have been in the Wabeno or Laona area.

John Severt was a blacksmith by trade and was a brother of Otto and August Severt. The History of Wood County states "that John had but little schooling and remained on the home farm until he was approximately 21 years old". Working in the woods as a member of lumber or logging camps, for several winters gave him the opportunity of learning the blacksmith’s trade. The brothers uncle, John, (brother of Albert) was killed in a logging accident in these woods in the winter of 1884-85 according to the History of Wood County.

No lumbering saga would be complete without a recount of early lumberjack days. Their brawn and muscle carved out the wilderness and met an expanding population’s timber needs. Strong, ingenious with their tools, hardy in the face of extreme occupational hazards, they formed one of America’s most colorful chapters. The public knew them best for their mighty thirst.

Today’s lumberjack is no rover but a family man who lives at home, drives to work in his own car with his own power saw and lunch pail. Today there are no remote women-less worlds of lumber camps nor logistics of board and keep for men at $.80 to $1.00 per day, nor searching for employees from a floating population. Modern power saws give employees a better living and an output matching Paul Bunyan’s legendary prowess.

Power saws arrived during World War II and were pushed as a patriotic measure to secure scarce lumber, when manpower also was scarce. The first were cumbersome two man affairs weighing 150 pounds to drag over stumps or felled trees; today’s are lightweight, ten to fourteen pound high speed single saws. Aiding wood work are huge log loading trucks, big skidders and modern equipment, including big bulldozers and gravel trucks for road maintenance in all weather.

The nineteenth century method of logging using oxen, then horses, and finally railway are gone. Many first settlers spent long winters in camps separated from their families and perhaps also hiring out their horses, so as to stake themselves through summer stump pulling and cultivation. They were supplanted by roustabouts for woods work. World War II’s technological inventions and selective harvesting advanced permanent road networks and ended the days of far away lumber camps and attracted more permanent workers. Roads make the work less seasonal and post World War II unemployment compensation reduced prior layoff problems during spring "break-up" periods.

In the 1890’s and early 1900’s, railroads made obsolete the primitive log river drives, where accumulated towers of logs awaited sluicing into spring’s flood swollen rivers and choked the waterways for miles en-route to mills. Wanagan cook shanties and store tents followed the "river-rat’s" progress down the river. If jammed anywhere, the long pile-ups had to be broken by ax flung into the key log, and woe to the man whose hobnailed or calked boots did not get him out of the way in time! Sure footed as these men were with their long pike poles and peavey hooks, dangerous, icy plunges could occur at any moment from the slippery, swirling logs as they made their way down the Little Eau Plaine River near Stratford.

BANKS OF THE LITTLE EAU PLEINE

(William N. Allen)

One evening in June as I rambled,

The green woods and valleys among,

The mosquitos' notes were melodious

And so was the whippoorwill's song.

The frogs in the marshes were croaking

The tree toads were whistling for rain,

And partridges 'round me were drumming,

On the banks of the Little Au Pleine.

The sun in the west was declining,

And tinging the treetops with red.

My wandering feet bore me onward.

Not caring whither they led.

I happened to see a young schoolma'am

She mourned in a sorrowful strain

She mourned for a jolly young raftsman

On the banks of the Little Au Pleine.

Saying, "Alas, my dear Johnny has left me

I'm afraid I shall see him no more

He's down on the lower Wisconsin;

He's pulling a fifty-foot oar,

He went off on a fleet with Ross Gamble

And has left me in sorrow and pain

And 'tis over two months sionce he started

From the banks of the Little Au Pleine.

"If John Murphy's the name of your raftsman

I used to know him very well.

But sad is the tale I must tell you:

Your Johnny was drowned in The Dells.

They buried him 'neath a scrub Norway,

You will never behold him again,

No stone marks the spot where your raftsman

Sleeps far from the Little Au Pleine.

"My curses attend you, Wisconsin,

May your rapids and falls cease to roar

May every towhead and sandbar

Be as dry as a log schoolhouse floor,

May the willows on all of your islands

Lie down like a field of ripe grain,

For taking my jolly young raftsman

From the banks of the Little Au Pleine.

Logs were herded into log booms chained by boom rings near mills. Stamp hammer devices branded log ownership for later sorting, at boom or mill ponds where logs merged from other companies. These ingenious stamp marks ranged from initials to the geometric or humorous in design, and were state registered.

Early woodsmen needed iron muscles to swing an ax all day, hewing into huge trees. In the 1880’s this back-breaking chopping of trees was ended by crosscut saws, with which two men together could more easily fell timber. The work was so hard, the men often stripped to the waist in below zero weather. Nearby stood big sleighs with up to 14 foot wide bunks. Men whose jobs were top loaders and hookers, swung up the logs by a cable from A-frame loading rigs. The patient horses could haul almost unbelievable loads. Later, logging railways used various steam McGiffert or slide loaders, to pile logs onto flat cars.