IASCOTT-L Archives

From:
Subject: [IASCOTT] The Last Log
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 14:03:46 EDT

A Raft Pilot's Log cont.

THE LAST LOG

291
"There is a picture hanging in the Gazette office, showing the old boom-
master, Frank McGray, hitching the last logthat came through the Saint
Croix boom; the log was a large one, scaling, I would say, five hundred or
six hundred feet and this closed operatons at the boom for all time; that was
on the twelfth day of June, 1914; on this day also, the last meal was
served in the old cook house and among those that sat down to dinner that day
were Mr.McGray, James R. Brennan, then the boom master, D.J. McCuish, Eugene
O'Neal, Rev, John McCoy, then pastor ot the First Presby-
terian Church, R.S. Davis, W.C. Masterman and several others, whose names
escape me at this writing."- Stillwater Gazette, April 2, 1928.

There has been much discussion as to when rafting ceased at West Newton
where the M.R.L. Company handled the great output of logs from the Chippewa.
I could not harmonize the positive but conflicting statements of numerous
persons to whom I appealed for information and was greatly pleased when I
finally got a letter from Mr. Andrew Thompson of Nelson, Wisconsin, which
closed the discussion.
Mr. Thompson had been a foreman at West Newton 292
until Mr. Edward Douglas, the superintendent, left for the west in 1904, when
he took charge of the job until the final wind up.
Mr. Thompson writes under the date of January 13, 1929, that no logs were
put past Chippewa falls after 1904; that in autumn of tha year(1904)
they splashed and drove everything in the river and had teams haul in from
the bottom and clear the islands and sloughs.
In this way they had thirty million feet to raft out in 1905 and the last
full raft was taken by one of Weyerhauser and Denkmann's boats late in
July or August first.
Some logs had broken away or got loose from number one and with a small
crew he caught most of them in Fisher Slough and fitted them up so
they could be taken to Winona.
Then they pulled the piling and rafted it and some of the booms. These and
the picked up logs were taken to Laird and Norton's mill at Winona
by the steamer 'Frontenac' in August. The chains, wire and wood were also
sold in Winona. The buildings and their contents were sold to people living
near, in 1905.
The steamer 'E. Douglas' and the pile driver were sold in 1906, and there
was nothing left to indicate the activities of the company that had turned
out as high as six hundred million feet of logs in one season, sorted,scaled
and rafted up in good shape ready for boats o hitch into and take down river.
1904 was the last full season at West Newton, 1905-
30,000,000 feet was the output at West Newton, and the clean-up of logs,
piles and booms.

This thread:

• [IASCOTT] The Last Log by