In a compilation of stories in the book Rafting Days in Pennsylvania, J. Herbert Walker wrote, “Here and there along the great waterway, one can get only a glimpse of the trails made by the raftmen, singing their backwoods songs as they toiled to their homes. With the passing of most of the raftmen, also are gone the strains of the violin played on the deck of the raft.”

The raftmen who plied their trade on rivers such as the Susquehanna and Juniata were a different breed. In a previous Susquehanna Footprints story, I wrote that their relationships with lumbermen were contentious at times. In another, the rivermen were described “as a carefree lot, happy in their work. Some became legends, such as “Cherry Tree Joe" McCreery.

This story focuses on the rafting and lumbering days of John D. Nerhood, who was born in Centre County in 1859 and died in Mifflin County in 1941.

His story was discussed by author and historian Herbert W. Shoemaker in an Altoona Tribune newspaper column at the time of Nerhood’s passing in February of 1941.

“Central Pennsylvania mourned another of the few remaining raftmen and pioneer lumbermen when John D. Nerhood passed on the other day at his home at Reedsville, Mifflin County, in his eighty-second year. One wonders if this venerable exponent of the great outdoors wrote the memoirs of his eventful life, was interviewed by that active Mifflin County historian and chronicler, J. Martin Stroup. Highlights in Mr. Nerhood’s late career were his rafting experiences on the Susquehanna River, covering a period from 1870 to 1880, and his lumbering operations in the wilds of Centre, Huntingdon, and Fulton counties up to about 1912, when he retired.

“Mr. Nerhood ran many rafts from Chest Creek to Lock Haven, Williamsport, and Marietta at various times, his friends say. He knew all the noted landmarks along the river, especially between Mahaffey's and Lock Haven dam, where much good Clearfield County lumber was sold by foot.

“Mr. Nerhood was fond of relating his adventures at such noted river "monuments" as Shaw's Dam, Mellon's Mills, Buttermilk Falls, Carothers' Bend, Billy's Point, Fulton Neck, Lick Run Breaks, the Devil's Den, Gallow's Harbor, Cat Fish Hole, Wood Rock. the Ram's Horn, the Rolling Stone, Big Basin, Horse Shoe Bend, Karthaus Straight, Big Moshannon Falls. Little Moshannon Falls, the White Break, and other never-to-be-forgotten tests of the raftsmen's skill and daring between the head of the river and Lock Haven, of which section Mr. Nerhood's buddies said he was one of the most expert steersmen. Among the great raftsmen known personally by Mr. Nerhood was the "greatest of them all," famed "Cherry Tree Joe" McCreery.

“Although he was invited to go down the river on the Last Raft in March 1938, John Nerhood regarded the expedition as risky and probably prolonged his life thereby a few years, and his name will not appear on the memorial to the seven victims, erected near Muncy. [The 1938 Muncy Raft crash, also referred to as The Last Raft tragedy, was a rafting accident that occurred on March 20, 1938, in Muncy Township, Pennsylvania. It killed seven of the 45 people on board; the remaining 38 were rescued.] Muncy Historical Society

In 1886, among his comrades on a raft of spars from Curry Run to Marietta were several Canadian Mohawk Indians who had returned the year before from Egypt where they had piloted rafts for General "Chinese" Gordon's famous expedition the Nile to the Sudan, where Gordon lost his life in a fierce battle.”

Following his rafting days, Nerhood operated a sawmill in Centre, Huntingdon, and Fulton Counties. He sold out his lumber business in 1912, then resided in Reedsville until 1931, while working at Standard Steel Works in Burnham.

Old Rafting Chant

Thus drifting to sea on a hick of white pine,

For grub and the wages we're paid,

The scoffers who rail as we buffet the brine,

May see us in sun or in shade;

But true to our course, though weather be thick,

We set our broad sail as before,

And stand by the tiller that governs the hick,

Nor care how we look from the shore.