USA > California > Sonoma County > An illustrated history of Sonoma County, California. Containing a history of the county of Sonoma from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time > Part 29
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
189
RED WOOD FORESTS.
CHAPTER XXI.
EXTENT OF REDWOOD FORESTS-THE LUMBER OUTPUT OF MILLS-COLONEL ARMSTRONG'S GROVE- A MONSTER TREE-THE BIG BOTTOM FORESTS, ETC.
XTENDING from Mendocino southward along the coast line of the county, to a distance averaging abont ten miles inland, is a magnificent redwood belt of timber. There are considerable quantities along Russian River and the Gnalala and at intermediate points, possi- bly one thousand millions of feet of lumber if all the Inmber is accessible.
The soil, generally throughout this region is very fertile. The valley's are mainly sandy loam, the deposits of ages. The hillsides, usually a dark loose mold of vegetable matter, some- times with gravel, and clay and rocks. It would seem as if the earth that produces this enor- mons growth ought to raise almost any kind of vegetation, and so far as tried, it does. There is no better land in the State for general farming purposes. Fruit, grapes, alfalfa, eorn, vines, ete., grow to perfection. The land too is cheap as compared with other more vaunted localities. But it is rough and laborious work to put these raw clearings, left by the loggers, in shape for the plow. Pears, apples, peaches, figs, grapes and especially French prunes flourish in perfec- tion, and prodnee with unbroken regularity. It is a section of the State little heard from heretofore and destined to become better known.
To give the reader some idea of the resources of the redwoods-what is left of them it may be stated that Occidental, Dnnean's Mills and Gnerneville are villages which are sustained mostly by saw-mills and lumber industries. The daily average shipments from Gnerneville are about eighteen carloads, of which ten are lumber furnished by the Big Bottom saw-mill. The annual ontput of lumber. ties, posts, piekets, shingles, cordwood, bark and piles is about half a million dollars from these little stations on Russian River. Near the month of the Gnalala River there is a fine mill, owning an immense tract of 15.000 acres of timber, and making extensive shipments.
Notwithstanding the great value of this tim- ber for export, its chief value is its proximity to the Santa Rosa and l'etalnma valleys, which extend from fifty to sixty miles northward from the Bay of San Francisco. Throughont that entire country all the fencing and building has been furnished by thes. redwoods. The first settlers went there and camped while they made rails, shingles and piekets on Uncle Sam's domain. It was common property. When the first saw-mill was built by Powers on the river. and after he had taken up the land, he was powerless to keep the farmers of the valley from
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
felling the timber under his nose and carrying it off'. Things are better managed now.
Redwoods are far taller than the sequoia giganten of Calaveras, which do not attain a greater height than abont 250 feet. Lumber inen have ent timber here, and can still show it in Big Bottom, over 350 feet high. The (liameter is less, ranging from saplings to 18 feet across the stump. Fifty acres of this heavy timber has been set apart for a publie park by Colonel Armstrong, with an extension of the Donahue Railroad leading to it, and completed but for a link in the line erossing lands owned by parties who will neither lease nor sell, near the village of Gnerneville. The road will doubt- less be finished after resorting to the courts. when future generations can have free access to the pienie gronnd. It will be the last remnant of a mighty forest before ten years, and the nearest one accessible (seventy miles distant by rail) to the city of San Francisco.
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The Petaluma Irgus of October, 1882, says: " Some months ago mention was made in the Argus of the felling of a mammoth redwood tree on the land of John Torrenee, near Guerne- ville, in this county. The following additional partienlars concerning this giant of the forest is furnished ns by Wm. L. Van Doren, of this eity: The standing height of the tree was 347 feet, and its diameter, near the ground, was 14 feet. In falling the top was broken off 200 feet distant from the stump, and up to the point of breaking the tree was perfectly sound. From the tree saw-logs were ent of the following lengths and diameters: 1st, 14 feet long, 9 feet diameter: 211, 12 feet long, 8 feet diameter; 3d, 12 feet long, 7 feet 7 inches diameter; 4tlı, 14 feet long, 7 feet 6 inches diameter; 5th, 16 feet long, 6 feet 10 inches diameter; 7th, 16 feet long, 6 feet 6 inehes diameter; Sth. 16 feet long, 6 feet 4 inches diameter; 9th, 16 feet long. 6 feet 3 inches diameter; 10th, 15 feet long, 6 feet diameter; 11th, 12 feet long, 5 feet 10 inches diameter; 12th, 18 feet long, 5 feet 6 inches diameter. It will thus be seen that 180 feet of this remarkable tree was converted into
saw-logs. As the length and diameter of each log is given, the reader ean, at leisure, figure out the quantity of inch Inmber the tree con- tained. If, instead of being cut into lumber, it had been worked up into seven foot piekets it would have afforded feneing material to enelose a good sized raneh."
A correspondent of the Healdsburg Flay, who some years ago visited the saw-mill of Gnerne & Heald in the Big Bottom redwood forest on Russian River, thus deseribes what he saw :
"The mill has been running in its present location about one year. It is a very substan - tial and well arranged structure, the workman- ship of Messrs. Bagley and Goddart of this town. It has a new 48-horse power engine, 14 cylinders and 18 ineh stroke, and runs a double eirele saw-the lower one 62 and the upper one 70 inehes-edger and planer. The capacity of the mill is 20,000 feet per day. The mill is twenty miles from Healdsburg by the road-about twenty-five miles by the course of the river. J. W. Bagley is head sawyer. We remained but one night at the mill, and the next morning penetrated into the forest for the purpose of seeing one of the resonrees of Sonoma Connty -- her redwoods. Three and a half miles from the mills we found . Duteh John' making shingles. This stalwart speei- men of Tentonie musele eats, sleeps, enoks, lives and battles with the giants of the forests alone. Sometimes he does not see a hnman form or hear a human voice, but his own, for weeks at a time. He has felled trees. Two of them are nearly worked np, and he has now on hand, made from them, over 200,000 shingles. lle informed ns that on his place trees that wonll make 180,000 shingles are common. Some will go to 200,000. I applied the tape- line to one tree that measured 67 feet in cir- eumference two feet above the ground. This monster of the forest measures nearly 200 feet in height to the first limb, at which point it is about ten or twelve feet through. Mr. Bagley made a calculation upon this hinge trunk, from
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
which he says it would eut 180,000 feet of lumber, make piekets to fence a ten aere lot and fifty cord of wood. The Plaza church in Healdsburg is 30x40 feet, and has a steeple 20 feet high; it contains about 30,000 feet of lum- ber. This tree, then, would cut lumber enough to make six such buildings.
" Near Heald's mill is a very large tree, known as . The Stable,' which is hollow at the ground, inside of which a man can stand upright and walk fifteen feet. It measures inside twenty - seven feet across, and is capable of stabling twelve horses, with a haymnow to supply them for one winter.
" Not far from this is the . Bean Pole.' This is a large tree, but it is somewhat tall. A meas- urement taken by professional meehanies gives this sprout a height of 344 feet. This is one of the finest bodies of timber on the coast, and is of a superior quality.
" Mr. J. G. Dow has taken a seetion of the bark from around one of these trees-thirteen feet in diameter-in pieces three feet long and one foot wide, which may be set up like the staves of a tub, showing the size of the tree. This bark is from five to ten inches thiek. Ile also had a piece of bark six feet long and about two feet wide, which is twenty inches thiek. He designe taking these barks East for exhibition. They will be on exhibition at the Mechanics' Pavilion in San Francisco during the fair this fall. He will perhaps give the people of Healdsburg, who may wish it, an opportunity of seeing this won- derful growth before removing it to the city. He has had the tree photographed and will have for sale the pictures, in sizes to suit the wishes of all.
" We visited the Steamer Enterprise, lying one mile below the mill. Captain King is quite confident that he will visit Healdsburg by steam- er before Christmas. Says he intends next suin- mer to make regular trips three times a week to Healdsburg. Next Saturday he intends making his first trip to the mouth of the river."
In speaking of these redwood forests, J. P. Munro-Fraser a few years ago penned the follow- ing in reference to the lumbering business in Ocean Township:
"There are several very large saw-mills in this township, in fact, there is more mill capac- ity in it than in any other in the county at the present time, aggregating about 150,000 feet daily. The Duncan's Mill Land and Lumber Association's mill will ent 30,000 feet a day. The mills owned by the Russian River Land and Lumber Association at Moscow, Tyrone, Russian River Station, and at other points in the lloward Canon, will each eut 30,000 feet daily; none of the mills belonging to the last . named association are running at the present time, but the mill of the first named is in ope- ration. To give a history of Duncan's mill, we must needs go back to the pioneer days both of California and of saw-milling. In 1849 a non- ber of carpenters, employed in the erection of the barracks at Benicia, conceived the idea of forming into a company and starting a saw-mill. Lumber at that time was worth $300 per 1,000 feet, and of course at that rate the business would pay far better profits than even mining. The company was organized under the name of the Blumedale Saw-mill and Lumber Company, in honor of F. G. Blume, of whom they leased the timber land. It was located on Ebabias Creek, in Analy Township, a few miles east of the present site of Freestone. Chas. MeDer- mot was president, and John Bailiff, secretary of the company. They formed the company and rented the land in 1848, but it was not un- til November of 1849 that the mill was got into operation, but by this time the price of lumber had so materially decreased, and the expense of getting it to market was so great, that but little lumber was ever cut by this company. In 1850 General George Stoneman (then lieutenant), Joshua HIendy, and Samuel M. Dunean purchased the property of the Blumedale Mill and Lumber Company, and continued to run it at that place until the spring of 1852. In the meantime, however, either late in 1851 or early in 1852, Stoneman disposed of his interest to his part- ners, and they continued in business under the firm name of Hendy & Dunean.
In 1852 Messrs. Ilendy & Duncan moved
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
their mill to a mining camp known as Yankee Jim's. Here they remained a year, and in 1853 the machinery was moved to Michigan Bluff's, another mining town. In 1854 they brought the machinery back to Sonoma County, locating at Salt Point, and establishing the first steam saw-mill in Sonoma County, north of Russian River. Up to this time the capacity of the mill had only been 5,000 feet per day, but the new boilers were procured, making it a sixteen-horse power engine, and increasing the capacity to 12,000 feet a day. In 1855 Joshua Hendy dis- posed of his interest to Alex. Duncan, and un- der the firm name of Duncan Brothers, the bus- iness was conducted very successfully at this point until 1860, when the mill was moved to the old mill site near the month of Russian River.
While at Salt Point they sawed 30.000,000 feet of lumber, being an average of 5,000,000 per year. At the time the mill was moved to Russian River, its machinery was greatly en- larged and improved, and its capacity increased to 25,000 per diem. While the mill was locat- ed at this place, they eut about 100,000,000 l'eet of lumber. No one has any conception of what those figures mean, or how much lumber it is; yet even that great number would have been greatly increased, had it not been that almost every year large quantities of logs were carried out to sea during the freshets. The winter of 1862 was the worst, carrying away probably 7,000,000 feet of lumber in the logs. It seemed almost impossible to construct booms strong enough to withstand the mighty force of the raging Hoods of water. In 1877 the Duncan's Mill Land and Lumber Association was formed, and the mill moved to its present location. At that time it was enlarged to a capacity of 35,- 000 feet per day, which is about the greatest capacity of any mill in this section. The ma- chinery in the mill consists of one pair of double circular saws, each sixty inches in diam- eter: one pony saw, forty inches in diameter: one muley saw, capable of cutting a log eight feet in diameter; two planing machines, one
pieket header, one shingle machine, together with edgers, jointers, trimmers, and all the nec- essary machinery and applianees for conducting the business of sawing and working up lumber expeditionsly.
We will now give a detailed description of the modus operandi of converting monster redwood trees into lumber. as we saw it done at this mill. We will begin with the tree as it stands on the mountain side. The woodsman chooses his tree, then proceeds to build a scaffold up beside it that will elevate him to such a height as he may de- cide upon cutting the stump. Many of the trees have been burned about the roots, or have grown ill-shaped near the ground, so that it is often necessary to build the scaffold from ten to twenty feet high. This scaffold, by the way, is an ingenious contrivance. Notches are ent at intervals around the tree at the proper height, deep enough for the end of a cross-piece to rest in securely. One end of the cross-picce is then inserted in the noteh, and the other is made fast to an upright post, out some distance from the tree. Loose boards are then laid upon these cross-pieces, and the scaffold is completed. The work of felling the tree then begins, If the tree is above four feet in diameter an ax is used with an extra long helve, when one man works alone, but the usual method is for two men to work together, one chopping "right-handed" and the other "left-handed." When the tree is onee down it is carefully trimmed up as far as it will do for saw-logs. A eross-ent saw is now brought into requisition, which one man plies with ease in the largest of logs, and the tree is ent into the required lengths. The logs are then stripped of their bark, which pro- cess is accomplished sometimes by burning it off. Then the ox-team puts in an appearance. These teams usually consist of three or more yoke of oxen. The chain is divided into two parts near the end, and on the end of each part there is a nearly right-angled hook. One of these hooks is driven into either side of the log, near the end next the team, and then.
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
with many a surge, a gee, and a haw, and an occasional (!) oath, the log is drawn out to the main trail to the landing-place. If on the road there should be any up hill, or other- wise rough ground, the trail is frequently wet, so that the logs may slip along more easily. Once at the landing-place, the hooks at the end of the chain are withdrawn, and the oxen move slowly back into the woods for another log. The train has just come up, and our log, a great eight-foot fellow, is carefully loaded on one of the cars. As we go along the track on this novel train on our road to the mill let us exam - ine it a little. Beginning at the foundation, we will look at the track first. We find that the road bed has been well graded, cuts made where necessary, tills made when practicable, and trestle work constructed where needed. On the ground are laid heavy cross-ties, and on them a six by six square timber. On this an iron bar, ahout half an inch thick and two and a half inches wide. is spiked the entire length of the track. The two rails are five feet and five inches apart, and the entire length of the tramway is five miles. Now we come to the cars which run on this queerly-constructed track. They are made nearly square, but so arranged that by fastening them together with rupes a combina- tion ear of almost any length can be formed. And lastly, but by no means the least, we come to the peculiarly-contrived piece of machinery which they call a "dummny," which is the motor power on this railroad. This engine, boiler, tender and all, stands on four wheels, cach about two and a half feet in diameter. They are con- nected together on each side by a shaft. On the axle of the front pair of wheels is placed a large cog-wheel. Into this a very small cog- wheel works, which is on a shaft, to which the power of the engine is applied. There is an engineer on either side of the boiler, and they have a reverse lever, so that the dummy can go one way as well as another. By the cog-wheel combination great power is gained, but not so much can be said for its speed. though a maxi- mum of five miles an hour can be obtained. On
our way to the mill we passed through a little village of shanties and cottages, which proved to be the residences of the choppers and men engaged in the woods. Farther on we pass through a barren, deserted section, whence the trees have all been eut years ago, and naught but their blackened stumps stand now, grim ves- tiges of the pristine glory of the forest prime- val. Now we pass around a grade, high, overhanging the river, and, with a grand sweep, enter the limits of the mill-yard. Our great log is rolled off the car on to the plat- form, and in his turn passes to the small car used for drawing logs up into the mill. £ A long rope attached to a drum in the mill is fastened to the car, and slowly, but surely, it travels up to the platform near the saw. Our log is too large to go at once to the double cir- cular, hence the "muley," a long saw, similar to a cross-cut saw. only it is a rip saw, and stands perpendicular, must rip it in two in the middle to get it into such a size that the double circular can reach through it. This is rather a slow process, and as we have nearly thirty minutes on our hands while waiting for our log to pass through this saw, let us pay a visit to the shingle machine. This we find on a lower floor. The timber out of which shingles are made is cut into triangular or wedge- shaped pieces, about four feet long, and about sixteen inches in diameter. These are called
"bolts." The first process is to saw them off into proper lengths. These blocks are then fastened into a rack, which passes by a saw, and as the rack passes back a ratchet is brought into requisition, which moves the bottom of the block in toward the saw, just the thickness of the thick end of the shingle and the top end to correspond with the thickness of the thin end. The block is then shoved past the saw, and a shingle is made, except that the edges are of course, rough, and the two ends probably not at all of the same width. To remedy all this, the edge of the shingle is subjected to a trim- iner, when it becomes a first-class shingle. They are packed into bunches, and are then
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HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY.
ready for the market. We will now return to our log. It has just been run back on the car- riage, and awaits further processes. A rope at- tached to a side drum is made fast to one-half of it, and it is soon lying on its back on the car- riage in front of the double circular saws. Through this it passes in rapid rotation till it is sawed into broad slabs of the proper thick- ness to make the desired lumber. It is then passed along on rollers to the "pony" saw, when it is again cut in pieces of Inumber of dif- ferent sizes as required. such as two by four, four by four, four by six, etc. It is then piled upon a truek and wheeled into the yard, and piled up ready for the market. The other half of the log is sawed into boards, three-quarters of an inch thick. At-the "pony" saw, part of it is ripped into boards, ten inches wide, and part into plank, four inches wide. The boards, ten inches wide, pass along to a planing machine, and it comes out rustic siding. The four-inch plank passes through another planing machine, and comes out tongued and grooved ceiling. The heavy slabs which we saw come off the first and second time the saw passed through are ent into different lengths, and sawed into the right size for pickets. They are then passed through a planer, then through a pieket-header, a machine with a series of revolving knives, which ent out the design of the pieket-head the same as the different members of a molding are cut out. Thus have we taken our readers through the entire process of converting the mighty forest monarchs into lumber. We hope we have succeeded in making the descrip- tion of the process, in a small measure at least, as interesting to our readers as it was to us when, for the first time, we witnessed it. When you have witnessed the process of making lum- ber in one mill you have seen it in all, with the exception of here and there a minor detail. There are but few mills which use a "dum- my" engine to draw their logs to the mill, most of them using horses or cattle on the tramways. The lumber and wood industries
of this township will always make it of con- siderable importance, and a prosperous future may reasonably be expected.
In reference to these redwood forests, the engineer of the California State Board of For- estry recently said:
"I am indebted to J. W. Bagley. C. E. of Guerneville, for interesting figures, both as to the size of trees, and yields of redwood lumber near that formerly famous vicinity. Mr. Bag- ley measured one tree 349 feet nine inches in height, and another nineteen feet in diameter underneath the bark, and states that the yield of one measured acre scaled in milled lumber 1,431,530 feet board measure."
There are thousands of acres that will yieldl this amount. During the past few years many thousand acres of redwood timber land, as fast as surveyed, have been taken by individuals in 160 acre locations under the aet peculiar to the l'acitie States and Territories, for the sale of publie timber lands, and under the home- stead and pre-emption laws. Tracts from 160 to 640 aeres in extent of land as good as any that has yet been cut over, can be found in the hands of the original loeators, for sale at prices varying with the individual financial needs or business shrewdness of the owners. To seeure larger traets, however, requires a constantly in- ereasing amount of perseverance, energy and capital, in consolidating these small holdings.
The exports of redwood from California have until within two or three years, been merely nominal, and yet with only the local demand, over one-third of the redwood timber area has been eut. As an evidence of the growing sear- city of the wood, we will mention that around Guerneville, in Sonoma County, the price of stumpage has appreciated to $4.50 per 1,000 feet. Eight hundred acres at Willow Gulch, in Sonoma County, were sold some time ago by the North Pacific Coast Railroad Company, to Mr. A. Markham, of Duncan's Mills, at the rate of $3.00 per 1,000 feet stumpage. This tract, it is estimated, will ent 100,000.000 feet.
HISTORY OF . SONOMA COUNTY.
195
NAMES BELONGING TO HISTORY.
CHLAPTER XXII.
PRESIDENT RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN AND SECRETARY OF WAR. ALEXANDER RAMSEY-COLONEL ROD MATHESON -- JOHN MILLER CAMERON -- SALMI MORSE.
IN the Petaluma Argus of September 10th, 1580, the following mention is made of several distinguished visitors to Sonoma County :
" According to wo announcement President Hayes and party, together with Governor Per- kins and staff, arrived in this eity at 11 o'clock A. M., Friday. The news of their coming had been widely made known both by telegraph and the daily Argus, and as was to be expected there was attracted to Petaluma the largest con - course of people ever seen here before. At an early hour the people came pouring in from all parts of the surrounding country, and from every part of this and contiguous counties easy of access to railroads. On the arrival of the cars from San Rafael conveying our dis- tinguished visitors, together with the commit- tee of our citizens who met them at San Rafael to eseort them up, a president's salute of twen- ty-one guns was fired from the eminence at the western end of Washington street. While the cannon was looming forth a welcome, the pro- cession, consisting of a long train of coaches and carriages of all kinds, moved through our streets in the direction of the fair grounds. The procession was led by the Petaluma Cornet Band, Hewston Guards, St. Vincent Cadets and the Swiss Society. The carriage in which Pres- ident Hayes rode was drawn by four elegant caparisoned horses ; then followed carriages with General Sherman, Secretary Ramsey, Governor 13
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