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A day on the log drive in
the mid 1900s was one long and hard day. The men had to be
prepared for hard work and low wages. The cabins where they
lived were nice, and the risk wasn't that great, but sadly
it had to end.
Back in the early 1900s,
the men on the log drive had it really rough. They
worked from before sun up to after sun down. Some men never
even saw the cabin they lived in during the sunlight. They
worked "pod auger" days, and were served four meals a day.
They were served breakfast at five a.m., another meal at
nine a.m., lunch at two p.m., and supper at seven p.m. Since
the men were working such long hours, they were cranky and
impossible to talk to. The foremen noticed this and decided
to shorten the working days to about six thirty in the
morning to about five or five thirty at night. This improved
the men's attitudes and helped them keep their minds clear.
During these hours, the men were more pleasant to work with
and there were less accidents. They often had temporary
camps that they moved as they went down the river. The camps
were three large tents that slept approximately eighty to
eighty-five men. They slept on blankets as there were no
real sleeping bags back then. There was a cook's shack and a
big fire in front of the tents.
In the mid 1900s a
typical year would go like this. In April, the men would be
bust getting ready for the log drive. They hooked the boom
logs together and as soon as the ice melted, the log drive
would begin. The men ran over the logs in the river with
caulk boots. These boots had thick soles and nails sticking
out of the bottoms so, the men wouldn't slip. They used pick
poles, long poles that had spikes on the end to keep the
logs going down the river. When a log jam happened, there
were four things that could be done. First, the men would
try to break the jam by hand. If that didn't work, they
tried to cut away the key logs, the logs that were holding
the others back. If they couldn't get to the key logs, they
would use dynamite to blow them away. If the jam still
hadn't come apart, they would use the dams to raise the
water level of the river. A day on the river in the summer
was usually just keeping the wood going down the river, but
in the fall it was a different story. Workers bringing up
the rear had to go along the banks of the river and make
sure there wasn't any wood left. Some wood was left way back
in the woods because of high water. When this happened the
men would form a line and pass the wood along to the banks
of the river where the last man would throw it into the
water. After all of the wood was in the river, boats would
come along with the booms and bring the wood the rest of the
way to the mills.
It wasn't very dangerous
on the log drive. The most common injury was a puncture
wound from a pick pole or some other hand tool. It was most
dangerous around the dams where a man caught off guard could
be swept away. If this happened, he would go down through
the sluice gate, never to be seen again.
After a long day on the
river, the men were glad to return to their cabins. If a man
lived near by, he would usually go home for the night.
However when a man came from far away just for the drive, he
would spend the night in a cabin. In the mid 1900s, the
cabins were really nice. They were built of logs. At one
end, there was the cook's barracks and at the other end was
where the men slept. There was a large wood stove that had
an 18 inch pipe. The pipe went up to an elbow, along the
wall to the other end of the cabin and up through the roof.
When the pipe went through the whole cabin like this, it
heated a lot better. There were nails on the walls where the
men could hang their wet and cold clothes and there were
poles near the stove pipe for the same purpose.
The last log drive was in
1976. It was held on the Kennebec River and it was a time to
be remembered. Some men think that it is too bad that the
log drive had to end. It was a time men looked forward to.
The pay wasn't good, but it was nice to be on the river,
work with your hands and be in nature. Other men say that it
was good that the log drive ended. The old way of doing
things was not good enough to compete with all of the
machinery being used and the other modern ways. Also logging
companies were getting greedy and instead of cutting the
wood, letting it dry, and throwing it into the river, they
were throwing the wood in green. When it is green it is
heavy and sinks, so it polluted the river.
Any way you look at it,
the Maine log drive is over, but it remains a part of our
town. The long days and hard work only made this town and
the men that live here stronger.
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