A SEASON IN THE WOODS

Several months ago (October 2024) I shared some of the reminisces of Hiram Cranmer of Hammersley Forks, Clinton County. He was born in 1891, and from an early age, worked in the lumber camps of northern Pennsylvania, until 1920. Nearly three decades later in 1947, he began talking about his experiences and memories, providing a unique insight into the heyday of lumbering in which towns sprung up overnight, and company owners became millionaires.

As I noted in the first story I shared, Cranmer sat down with a newspaper reporter from the Lock Haven Express in January of 1948, and in several columns, shared his recollections.

“The first lumber camps of Clinton County were built "State Maine" style. Along the sides of the camp were double-decked beds reaching the length of. the camp. The blankets and quilts reached the length of the bunk so when a man went to bed he crawled under the bedclothes, In. the center was an open fire with a hole in the roof to let the smoke escape.

“Downeasters, men from Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, that worked in pine woods belonged to the "army of the unwashed." All they removed to go to bed was their hats and boots. When the overshirt they were wearing wore through at the elbows, they just bought another and pulled it on overtop. In the Spring on the log-drive, you could count as high as six shirts that a man was 'wearing’ by counting at the elbows where they were worn through. Later when hemlock lumbering began, much better camps were built.

“They were built two stories high, 18. feet wide and from 40 to 90 feet long. Upstairs three rows of woven spring beds reached the entire length of the camp. Downstairs was the lobby at one end of the camp. The lobby varied in size with the length of the camp, whose size was governed. by the number of men employed. The lobby was the width of the camp and from 16 to 24 feet long. The rest of the downstairs was the dining room with a lean-to on the end of smaller camps or on the side of big camps, for the kitchen. Large iron kettles were provided where men could heat water on Sunday to wash their clothes.

“If a man thought he needed a bath in warm weather he hunted up a hole in the creek. In cold weather, he had to go either to town or home to get a bath. John E. Dubois Jr., when he lumbered the hemlock out of Hicks Run in Elk County, had three camps of 200 men each. His camps were 60 feet wide with a bath and toilets both up and downstairs.

“Saturday evening after supper those of his men that wished to do so could ride to town on special cars for that purpose. Sunday evening, they were hauled back to camp. This was unusual for the lumber company to furnish transportation for their men on weekends. Of course, (John) Dubois owned both. logging railroads and trains.

“In the lumber woods of Pennsylvania, an 11-hour day was the rule beginning at 6 o'clock in the morning. Breakfast was 15 minutes after the men were awakened. The men were called for dinner at 11:30. Some jobbers gave their men an hour's noon, and others would call at the lobby door "All right, boys," before half the men were through eating. Some jobbers made the men walk both ways on their own time. If men were plentiful, it was not uncommon for men to walk a mile from camp and have a tree down when the 6 o'clock whistle blew.

“In bark peeling, men were called at 5 o'clock or a quarter hour earlier. Two good men cutting logs in a hemlock slashing could cut on an average around twenty thousand feet per day. But such men got a quarter extra a day in wages. The amount a crew cut depended on conditions, the kind of timber, and the size. The best cutting was logs that ran five to seven logs to the thousand board feet. In cutting larger or smaller logs, not so much board feet could be cut.

“Bark peeling (hemlock) started in May and ended before the middle of August. If the jobber didn't get his bark all peeled before it tightened, at the new moon in September the bark would loosen and peel for one week. After bark-peeling was ended for that year, the bark was taken out, the trees cut into logs and skidded to railroad or slide. When snow came, logs on the mountain tops were skidded and run in slides to the landing.” After the hemlock logs were on the landing, the hardwood and pine were cut and skidded. The job would be finished in April, then a new camp was built, and roads were cut ready for bark peeling when the bark loosened up.

“If a man was "swamping" (cutting out roads) he generally worked alone. If "shooting bark" down a chute he worked in a crew of five, one man on the RR car to load as the bark came down the chute, three to put bark in the chute and one to erect the chute ahead as they progressed up the mountain. If the bark was hauled on a dray (sled with a rack on it) the man that loaded drays was called a "dray-dog" and with the teamster made a crew of two to load and unload drays. In skidding logs, a team had a teamster and "grab-driver;" two or three teams worked to the same landing with two men “Rolling landing” made a crew of six to eight working on each landing. Cutting logs, two men worked in a crew. In peeling hemlock, two men to a crew, one fitter, one spudder.”

A fitter was a worker who notched trees for felling and measured the logs to be cut from them. The spudder refers to a worker who used a specialized tool called a "bark spud" to remove bark from felled logs, essentially peeling the bark off the wood to prepare it for further processing at the mill.

Cranmer said crews varied from 10 men to 200 men. Foremen were usually men past 40 years of age and not only experienced woodsmen, but having the gift of handling a crew of men, the exception being that sometimes, but not often, the contractor's son would act as boss, but not if men were scarce as men did not care to work under a boss who was less than 30 years: old. 

Tragically, Cranmer died in a fire in his Hammersley Fork home in Clinton County, in October of 1967, at the age of 76. Hist storytelling and memories provided a vivid picture of life in the lumber camps in northern Pennsylvania.