From a different time

Came across this today and thought some of you folks may enjoy it as much as I did. I really do enjoy seeing this type stuff.
It is remarkable to me how things have changed from not so long ago. Some for the better, some not so much.

My kinfolk from Tn. were for the most part lumbermen/loggers, and/or tobacco farmers. Hard men, that knew what hard work was. Hard men not afraid of doing what they had to do for their themselves and their families. Men that were thought well of and respected for what they did.

I guess that is why I enjoy this type stuff so much. All my life I have enjoyed listening to their stories of years gone by. Learning from them as much as I could. Even learned how to make a floating fire from my uncle Bert.....lol

Anyway, if ya enjoy this and have a story to tell, I for one would love to hear it.

Log drives were dangerous jobs.My buddy's dad was a log driver and went thru the log raft at Island falls and drowned back around 1960.

Grandpa did a lot of great things in his day, things that are hard to even fathom anyone doing today. At 15 years old he got a job herding sheep, and for a solid year he never set foot inside a building. Saved many sheep and cattle in a storm in South Dakota one year, out all day in windchills dipping to -70 digging the stock out of drifts so they didn’t suffocate. He got frostbite on his face so bad that he almost lost his ears and nose, but the livestock was safe and that’s what mattered to him. They just don’t make very many men like him anymore.

that was good.
My great great grandfather was part owner in a sawmill he was also a boat builder and merchant.
from reading the old paper articles he brought in the most logs most years 150K feet by spring some years , hemlocks and hardwoods for lumber
all by sled
lumber and cord wood not used locally was loaded on boats to take it to markets down the Lake Michigan coast of Wisconsin

some of the old pictures of schooners loaded with cord-wood across every deck 4 and 5 feet high then to run that down to Milwaukee

My grandfather immigrated from Norway when he was 7 in 1880. When he was 16 he joined with a logging camp that operated out the Winter-Loretta WI area. He went up every late November until April until he was married when he was 34. So he logged from 1888 until 1906 and made a half dozen shorter stays until 1917. He was involved in the later stages of the river drives which floated the lighter softer wood, mostly white pine. When the light wood was gone the spur railroad tracks were made to bring the hardwood to the mills. In WI most of the rivers in northern WI flow south or southwest which made log drives very good as the population centers were in the southern portion of the state. When he fully retired as a logger my grandfather was a rock or stone mason that built barn walls in the area until he was in his early 70s. When I was young we cut wood for 7 households within the family and my grandfather did that work until he was 82.
I was two years old and can't remember, but there are pictures of me next to the team as we logged with horses up into the early 1950s. We actually broke land with horses and a breaking plow until 1952 when we got the first tractor.
There are dozens of portions of the old driving dams along many of the smaller rivers in northern WI.
Thank you for sharing. I have studied the history of logging in WI and find that history very interesting.

Bryce

My Tn. kin did do some "floats" on the Cumberland river and the Tn. river. Nothing nearly as large as in that video. Most of the hardwoods they cut were moved on wagons pulled by horses, or mules.

I had two second cousins that owned the first chainsaw in that area of Tn. Not sure what brand, but it was a two man chainsaw. They said they would fight that saw till noon, then grab their dbl. crosscut saw and make some money after noon. lol Both went on to own a small mill and were considered by most to be the best timber cutters in the area. Sadly they are both gone now.

The other side of my family were all farmers. Came to Illinois on a wagon train from New york. My grandfather was killed when my dad was only 4-5 years old. His older brother was 12 at the time. He took over for his dad plowing all the fields right away. He had two mules and two horses that he swapped out day to day. He did that, and with another brother milked their dairy cows everyday , until they were both drafted to serve in WW2. He passed away last year at the age of 91.

Thanks for sharing! We had three saw mills in town, you can still find slab wood in some area. Now and then they will dig up saw dust that was dumped and covered year later. I have only see pictures of those day.