| In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the loggers at first came
in from Lower Michigan and were called "Sags". They had the reputation
of being heavier drinkers, and better lighters than our Wisconsin men,
though they were all plenty tough. Later the Finns came in to work in the
iron and copper mines, and soon became a large proportion of the Lumber
Jacks and Farmers.
Most stories of the woods emphasize the "toughness" of the Lumber Jacks, but I think that is over done. When the crews went to the woods in the Fall and did not come out till Spring, many of them would indulge in a drunken spree and spend most of the money they had earned. But they were not criminals, they committed very few crimes, were friendly and ready to help a fellow Man in trouble. In general, they were hard workers and honest. Most of them married, built nice homes for themselves in the towns and on farms, and became good citizens. They built many churches in all of the towns, and throughout the farming communities, and there were many different denominations, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Lutheran. There was little chance for worship in the camps but whenever a "Sky Pilot" visited them, they welcomed him and attended the services and sang the songs. I never heard of any one showing disrespect to a Christian worker. Some of the men in the woods were profane, especially the ox and mule teamsters, and they used to claim that these animals did not understand any other language. I have heard ox teamsters rip out a continuous string of oaths as they urged their "cattle" to hurry up, but they meant nothing wrong and hardly realized what they were saying. They probably never thought that they were taking the name of God in vain. At one time a large number of "Kentucks" were imported into Forest County to cut cordwood. They settled through the woods and were a great help in logging. Many of them were good Christian people and never did any harm to visitors, unless they interfered with their moonshine stills. If one did that, look out! They did not hesitate to shoot to kill if they thought their rights were being invaded. When we were getting all of our logs down the rivers, the mills had to shut down in November, when the river froze up, and not start up again until April. Most of our camps were 50 to 100 miles from town, and very few of the men could go home during the winter. The majority of the mill crew went to the woods and the rest of the woods crew was made up of farmers, who worked on their farms during the summer and went to the woods in the winter to get some cash. After we got to bringing in logs by rail and running the sawmill all the year around, we had to pick up woods men wherever we could find them. Many of them gathered in the cities when out of work and went out to work in the woods, or on railroads, or wherever they could get a Job. All of the larger companies employed "men catchers" who visited places like Milwaukee, Chicago, Minneapolis, Duluth, and Hurley, and would gather up the men and pay their railroad fare to the camps. Some places they visited the jails and got the Sheriffs to let out all of his prisoners, most of whom had been arrested for drunkenness, and then herded them off to camp. Thirty-Six |
This class of labor was very unsatisfactory, nothing like our
mill men and farmers. Many of them only stayed a short time and drifted
back to the towns and cities again.
Our Logging Superintendents were a superior class of men. Mr. Augustus Cole was the general superintendent of Holt & Balcom and he looked after the woods work himself. He was a lumberman at Painted Post, New York, before coming to Oconto. He was lame, one leg being several inches shorter than the other, but he managed to get around wherever a team of horses and a buck- board or sleigh could go. When Holt Lumber Company took over I put Paul W. McDonald in charge of logging operations. He was an admirable man in every way, intelligent, industrious, and very loyal to the Company. He was Superintendent from 1888 till 1910, when he was run over by a car on our logging road and lost one leg. He came from Nova Scotia to Oconto. Our next Superintendent was John Henderson Bateman, big and powerful, a hustler, a man of character and good Judgment. He died of diabetes. Ed Herald, an Irish Catholic, succeeded him. He was a very able man, of excellent character, with no bad habits. He died of heart disease while driving to one of the Camps near Townsend. He was succeeded by Ralph Williams, also a Catholic, a very able man of the best of character and habits, and better educated than any of his predecessors. He could figure costs in advance of the work being done, as well as afterward. Our last Superintendent was George R. Bauers, an Oconto boy who worked for us in the woods from the time he got out of school. Like the rest, a man of superior quality. He was very successful in handling men and logging operations. We had many Camp Foremen. The one I prized the highest was James Urquhart, a good Christian Man and a member of the Presbyterian Church. If he had stayed with us a little longer he would have been logging Superintendent. He was quite young when Paul McDonald picked him out as a likely foreman. He was driving team in a logging Camp at that time. He was a hustler, had good Judgment, and very popular with all the men. They used to come to the office and ask for a job with "Jimmie." I asked some of them why they wanted to work for him, and they said he was fair, he had no favorites, and he knew how much a man could do in a day and as long as a man did that Jimmie treated him well. He discouraged drinking and swearing, and observed Sunday as
well as he could in a Camp. He would get out his Bible and read it in sight
of the men and they all respected and liked him. I was very sorry when
he decided to quit the woods and live with his family in Oconto.
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