When two people or two groups are at odds with each other, we hear the phrase, they are at “loggerheads.” It’s actually a word that can be found in a Shakespeare play in 1588 that meant a stupid person. Another definition from the 17th Century described the loggerhead as ‘an iron instrument with a long handle used for melting pitch and for heating liquids.

It would seem to be a perfect word to use to describe the opposition between loggers and raftmen who plied their trade on the Susquehanna River in northern Pennsylvania in the 19th century. The loggers and floaters came head-to-head in Clearfield County in May of 1857, as described in a May 6th article in the Raftsman’s Journal.

“The raftmen of Clearfield Creek, having failed to obtain redress for the wrongs inflicted upon them by floating saw logs, as a last resort determined to take the law into their own hands and abate the nuisance by force of arms. On Thursday the 30th ult., they met at Clearfield Bridge, and constituted themselves a vigilance committee, by selecting proper officers and organizing In companies.

On the 1st of May one of these companies, armed with rifles, shotguns, and axes, under the command of Captains Cline and Fiscus, marched to Driftwood Island, about 13 miles above this place, where they encountered a superior force of log floaters. Notwithstanding the disparity of numbers, the raftmen attacked the floaters and for some time fought desperately, maintaining the unequal conflict until the arrival of reinforcements, when the floaters were driven from the field, three of their number had fallen in the conflict, seriously though not mortally wounded. But for the exertions of some of the raftmen, many of the floaters would have lost their lives as the passions of the former were roused to the highest pitch. After the fight, the cabin of the floaters was destroyed, but they were allowed to take away their carpet bags and clothing upon a promise being given to quit the business. Thirty-three gave the required promise and departed in peace.”

The raftsmen are still under arms, determined to drive every floater from the creek. A number of log floaters were in town on Monday and made information against 47 persons on a charge of riot, and, we understand, that warrants for the arrest of the latter have been issued.

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Clearfield County was a major contributor to the logging and rafting trades. Sixteen years later, in 1873, the Raftsman Journal newspaper looked back on the two groups competing for access to the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, and the impact it had on the county.

“As the rafting season has commenced and will soon be at its height, the following description of river navigation and matters relating to the lumber trade will generally be read with interest. Perhaps there are few of our readers who have any practical knowledge of the business of rafting as carried on the waters of the West Branch and its tributaries. It is doubtful if we could write such a description of it as would either interest them or convey an intelligent idea of its extent, its hardships, excitements, and risks. That the business has seen its best days is no longer questioned, and this is for the best of reason--the want of timber. The vast forests of Clearfield County are getting pretty well cleared out, not by rafting but by “logging” -- that is the cutting of trees into sawlogs, tumbling them into the streams, and allowing them to float to the booms at Lock Haven and Williamsport. Years ago, much-sawed lumber was rafted and thus sent to market. But it never paid.

Boards thus exposed to the water became coated with sand and would not sell as rapidly as those not thus exposed. Boards in the raft at Middletown for from five to seven dollars per thousand or about as much as they are now worth in the standing tree eight and ten miles from the nearest stream. When the mammoth sawmills were erected at Lock Haven and Williamsport, the river people stopped the manufacture up river people stopped the manufacture of lumber to a great extent, and turned their attention more to square timber, spars, etc., and now only send choice selection of lumber, such as panel stuff, cherry, poplar, ash, etc., which they carry as loading.

An average raft of square timber is about 200 feet long, 50 to 25 feet wide, and contains from 5,000 to 8,000 cubic feet. For some years the aggregate number of such rafts sent to market from Clearfield County alone has averaged not less than 2,000 each year, and which were sold at say $1,500 a raft, so that the reader by a little calculation can readily estimate the magnitude of the trade.

The past winter very unfavorable for the lumber men, owing to the deep snow, and the great ice freshet in February caused a very severe loss to many of them, as it is estimated that not less than 100 old rafts left in the water from last fall and enough timber to make fifty new ones "piled" at the rafting places, went adrift. This timber that goes adrift hardly pays the cost of gathering it up. But it all gets onto the market. If the owners fail to follow and secure it, it is seized by the "Algerines" (timber stealers), the brands cut out or the stick turned face downward, re-rafted, and sold to the "sharks" to be found here and there from Sunbury down to the bay. The running of these rafts to market requires a strong force of men and is attended with very great exposure and not a little risk of life and limb.

The river from Clearfield to the head of the river is mostly a sluggish stream and will average four men to the raft, or two to the half raft, at least to Curwensville, six miles above Clearfield-where they are coupled together and dropped down to Clearfield, which is at the head of the rough water, which extends to what is called Buttermilk Falls, sixty miles by water and about half the distance by land. When the water is right high this distance can be run inside of eight hours. To run "through the falls" requires five and six hands, including the pilot, who gets from ten to fifteen and sometimes as high as twenty dollars a run, some of whom make as high as four or five trips a week. At Buttermilk Falls, the pilot and three or four of the hands are discharged and two or three men take the raft thence to Lock Haven, when another class of men are generally on hand ready to contract for the delivery of the raft at Marietta or at some other point for so much per foot.

Besides the river, Clearfield Creek, emptying into the river three miles below Clearfield, furnishes a large quantity of timber. It is very different from the river in its flow, being very rapid, rocky, and crooked, requiring double the force to manage a raft that the river does above Clearfield, and accidents on it are of frequent occurrence.

Within fifteen or twenty years, square timber of the very best quality sold at Marrietta for as little as five or six cents per cubic foot. It is now selling rapidly at Lock Haven at twenty-two to twenty-four cents, and two or three cents more at Marrietta for pine. White oak commands six to eight cents more.

But this is owing somewhat to the shortness of the supply. If all that was manufactured should get to market, the supply will be considerably short of any of the last dozen years. But the chances are that the up-river men will not get down at all, or at least not until another rise. Last Saturday night some rafts broke loose above Lumber City, and coming down to that landing, swept the beach from that town to Curwensville, where they lodged, forming a jam of timber rafts and saw logs extending a distance of two or three miles. All day Sunday men were at work trying to cut it loose, but without success, and we understand the effort was abandoned on Monday. There was also another jam reported some twenty miles further up, of still greater magnitude, extending five or six miles in length. These jams are no doubt the result of carelessness to some extent; but if there were no loose saw logs to pile and wedge in, it would be but a small task to get the rafts out; and it ought to satisfy everyone that rafting and logging are incompatible at the same time. Twenty years ago, when the first boom companies were chartered, the people of Clearfield besought the legislature to restrict the log men, by forbidding them from throwing their logs into the stream until the raftmen had the advantage of one or two freshets. But the power of the corporations triumphed then just as they do now. So strong is the feeling of the raftmen against their enemies that many of them say they are willing their timber should remain in the jam till fall just to punish the log men. Six or seven hundred would not be an extravagant estimate of the number of rafts in and above these jams, worth not less than one million dollars, while the logs are worth probably half as much.

Had the system of logging never been adopted, Clearfield would today be one of the richest counties in the state. As it is, four or five years more will find pine timber about as scarce as it is in Blair County. Making square timber is by no means as destructive as logging, for the reason that only the full-grown or larger trees are taken, and the small ones left to grow larger; while logging everything over ten or twelve inches is taken, and what is not taken, is broken down and destroyed. If logging had never been introduced there, Clearfield would have pine trees enough today, to pay off the state debt and plenty of them left.