An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 76

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172

USA > Washington > Skagit County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 76
USA > Washington > Snohomish County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 76

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From the foregoing incomplete and very imperfect outline of Skagit county's resources, it will be seen that they are very diverse, very rich and practically limitless in their possibilities of development. Agricultural lands of almost unparalleled richness, timber equal to the finest in America, plenty of coal and iron of good quality, bright prospects for the development of other minerals, plenty of tale and pulp wood for the supply of paper mills, abundance of fish of all varieties, a climate mild, healthful and suited

to the textile industries and all other lines of manufacture, as well as to the rearing of all kinds of live stock, safe and comniodious harbors, water power in abundance, at the front door a sea just starting into world-wide commercial importance, trans-continental railways entering at the back door and competing for her trade- these are the possessions of Skagit county, the basis of her present prosperity and the solid foundation of her hope for the future.

SNOHOMISH COUNTY

To the south of Skagit, and between it and King, is Snohomish county, which also has for its eastern boundary the summit of the Cascades, and its western the sound. The salt water and the mountains here approach a little nearer each other than further north, making Snohomish county somewhat shorter from east to west than Skagit; and though it enjoys a greater frontage on Puget sound, than its northern neighbor it is a little smaller. Its superficial area is one thou- sand six hundred and fifty-one square miles. While the pride of Skagit county is its tideland development, that of Snohomish is most justly the splendid achievements of its loggers, lumber- men and shingle manufacturers, achievements which have placed it in the front rank among lumbering communities. Snohomish is one of the banner counties of the sound basin for the magnificence of its natural covering of timber, many quarter sections yielding eight or ten million feet of merchantable saw logs, some even more, while comparatively few have had less than three millions. The timber is very widely distributed over its entire surface, prairies being few and relatively insignificant, though some of them are of great agricultural value, and the only other untimbered acres being the rocky crests of a few lofty mountain peaks.

As is true of all other countries on the east side of the sound, its most striking physical features are the deep salt sea along its western border, and the lofty Cascades, which occupy its entire eastern part, and cover nearly half its area. Much of its present importance and hope for the future is due to its location on the strategie Puget sound, giving it immediate access to the rapidly developing markets of the Pacific, and making it a participant in whatever the future may have in store for this singularly favored region. So many are the natural har- bors of Puget sound that almost every town on its shore may have one, but it is claimed that of Everett is in some respects superior to any other, even to those of Seattle and Tacoma. Notwithstanding the bitter county-seat fight of the middle nineties between Snohomish City and Everett, it may, perhaps, be safely said that it is the ambition of the entire county to build on Port Gardner bay, a great maritime and manu- facturing center, and no doubt the highest good

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of the county at large demands that this be done.

The Cascade mountains are of value, not alone for their billions of feet of merchantable timber, and for the marvelous effect they have upon climatic conditions, but for the great wealth of hidden treasures they are known to contain. Much of their timber is beyond the reach of the lumberman at present, being included along with other bodies of timber in Snohomish and neighboring counties in a gov- ernment forest reserve, but the law does not prohibit mining, nor prevent the taking of sufficient timber for that purpose, so the develop- ment of their mineral deposits is now in progress.

Another physical feature of transcendent importance is the two river systems of the county. These are somewhat similar in several respects. Both have westerly currents and both consist of a short river formed by the con- fluence of two others, the branches heading in the Cascades. The Stillaquamish pours its water into the sound in the northwestern part of the county. Its north fork drains the west half of the extreme northern part while its south fork rises well toward the center of the county. Between the two, which unite near Arlington, is a large body of country, including the western spur of the Cascade range, the spur in which is the celebrated White Horse mountain, nearly seven thousand feet high. Rising deep in the Cascades, flowing northwesterly until it rounds the base of Gold mountain, and separated at Darrington from the waters of the north fork by a narrow divide is the Sauk river, one of the noblest streams in the sound basin. It continues its northerly course until its waters unite with those of the Skagit.

The drainage of the southern part of the county consists, for the most part, of the magni- ficent and beautiful Snohomish river and the two equally magnificent streams which unite to form it, the Snoqualmie and the Skykomish. Both of the smaller streams rise in King county, hence have a northerly as well as westerly course, but the Skykomish belongs principally to Snohomish, while the Snoqualmie is largely a King county stream. It has, however, contributed very materially in the past to the wealth and pros- perity of this county. Its logs have sought an outlet through the Snohomish river, and the trade relationship of its rich valley with our sec- tion has been very intimate. Its sublime water- fall where its current leaps perpendicularlv downward through nearly two hundred feet of space is a source of pride to the whole sound country.

One of the pleasing physical features of Snohomish county is its multitude of miniature lakes. Just north of the Tulalip Indian reserva- tion and between the Great Northern railroad and the sound is a splendid cluster, including

Lakes Goodwin, Shoecraft, Crabapple, Cranberry, Ki, Howard, Martha and others. A short distance west of Machias is Stevens lake, cutting out portions of several sections while well distributed over the surface of the county are many smaller bodies of fresh water, among them being Roe- siger, Chaplain, Plowing, Panther, Storm, Silver, MeAleer, Mud, Conner, Bosworth, Upper and Lower Twin and Riley. Each of these magni- ficent lakes, with the towering evergreens on its banks and the water lilies and other plants growing thick near its border. forms a scene of rare attractiveness and beauty.

The country being covered thick with the finest timber and possessed of two great rivers whose tributary streams penetrate far into the heart of the forest, furnishing easy conveyance to market, it is not surprising that lumbering should early take first place among the industries of Snohomish and that it should continue to hold pre-eminence through all the years of the coun- ty's history.

For forty years, now, the logger and the mill man have been at work, yet the time seems far in the future when the timber supply of the county will begin to show the first signs of exhaustion. According to United States government report issued in 1902, there were then only 252 square miles of logged off lands in the county; the burned area was only 119 square miles in extent and the timberless area 2S, while on 1, 252 square miles, the timber was still standing. Of course much of this timber is inaccessible, some being remote from established routes of transportation and still more reserved by the government. The report estimates the amount of timber still in the county in feet, board measure, as follows: red fir, 7,356,337,000; cedar, 2,050,630,000; hemlock, 1,055,737,000; lovely fir, 214, 742,000; white fir, 61,423,000; Engelmann spruce, 42, 955, - 000; other species, 107,371,000; total, 10, 892, 195, - 000. The average stand per acre on the timbered area was estimated at 13,500 feet board measure.

From time to time in the past remarkably large trees have been discovered in different parts of the sound country and noticed in the local press. Near Snohomish is a large cedar, through which a passage way has been cut and a bieyele path constructed. Photographers have striven to surpass one another in producing artistic pictures of it and they and the engraver and the printer have succeeded in advertising it quite widely over the country. The bicycle tree, as it is called, is a source of much pride to the people of Snohomish C'ity and vieinity, who have surrounded it with a wire netting to save it from the pocket knives of the thoughtless. It is much more celebrated than its nearest neighbor on the other side of the county road, which, how- ever, greatly surpasses it in size, being more than sixty feet in circumference, while the bicycle tree is probably not more than forty-five.

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In 1590, the Seattle Press called attention to a tree on Ulmer Stinson's land three miles east of Snohomish City, which was twenty-threc feet in diameter, indeed much greater than that at the surface of the ground. The tree had been hollowed by the action of fire and there were indications that the room inside had been used as a camping place by Indians from time to time. It was estimated that this tree was more than one thousand years old, for eight hun- dred rings had been counted on a much smaller tree near by.

In its issue of June 19, IS91, the Snohomish Sun quoted the Arlington Times as saying :

"The largest tree in Snohomish county, prob- ably, is a cedar which stands a little way from the Kent's Prairie and Stanwood road, about six miles from Arlington. A party of nine went down from this place last Sunday to satisfy themselves of the truth of what were regarded by them as exaggerated reports of its size. It has been claimed that the tree is ninety-nine feet in circumference, but the measurement taken Sunday shows it to be only sixty- eight feet. If measured around the roots and knotty protuberances the tree would likely measure the ninety-nine feet claimed for it, but that is not a fair test. Sunday's measurement was as close to the body of the tree as a line could be drawn. About seventy-five feet from the ground the tree forks into four immense branches. Just below the forks is a big knot hole and five of the party climbed up and made an exploration of the inside of the tree, which is a mere shell, though still green. A peculiar feature which they noticed was that the tree is barked on the inside the same as on the outside."

The largest trees in the sound country are cedars and usually hollow, but some very large, solid fir trees have been found and reported to the local press. The Skagit News states that in April, 1888, Joseph Cozier put a log into Baker river forty-eight feet long, which scaled one hundred and eight inches at the top and one hundred and twenty at the butt and contained thirty-two thousand four hundred and forty-eight feet of lumber. J. P. McCoy told one of the com- pilers that he cut a fir on the banks of the Samish from which five logs were made, with an aggregate lumber content of twenty-four thou- sand feet, and doubtless much larger stories could be told by other logging men in consistency with literal truth.

Sections of the big trees of Snohomish, Skagit and other counties of the sound have been exhibited at the different world's fairs and at numerous smaller expositions in various parts of the country, and they have invariably attracted much attention. In Snohomish county's exhibit at the Lewis & Clark Centennial, recently concluded at Portland, was a cross-section of a tree thirteen feet in diameter. The cross-section

was about a foot thick, with its upper surface polished so as to make a smooth floor. On it were several other cross-sections of smaller trees, some of which had been shaped into stools, while others were carved into comfortable chairs. A typewriter desk was also there made by taking a cross-section about four feet long and three feet thick, standing it on end and cutting away a place for the knees. On a high chair beside it sat a stenographer to whom any one wishing to dictate letters rnight do so without charge. Naturally this novel exhibit was the center of much interest, and no doubt it gave to many a resident of the less-favored East a new vision of the glory and wealth of occidental America.

The importance of Snohomish county as a lumbering country rests, however, not upon its forest giants, though it has them in abundance, but rather upon the thick stand of ordinary trees from two to six feet in diameter, which covers the timbered area. An outline of the methods by which the huge logs were in the past and now are transported from the forest to the rivers or the railroads may be of interest. The modus operandi of handling logs in the woods, like most other processes, has been one of development. The most primitive method was that of the hand logger who traveled over the sound and its tributary streams in his boat or canoe, established a temporary camp wherever he might find a cluster of trees close to the water's edge, felled them into the water or so near it that, when cut into logs, they could be rolled in with peavey or jackscrew, and finally floated them to the nearest satisfactory market. The hand logger also operated upon river jams or wherever the timber could be profitably handled with no other than hand power and by the use of a few simple tools such as saws, axes, handspikes, peaveys, jackscrews, etc.

The men who logged in this way probably did so because without money to purchase an outfit, rather than from want of knowledge of a better method.

Even in the earliest days of the industry on Puget sound, oxen were used in taking out timber, and they furnished practically the only power employed by lumbermen until the middle or latter eighties. A man wishing to engage in the business would first look up a suitable loca- tion within convenient reach of water where there was sufficient timber to keep him busy for a number of years. This found, his next con- sideration was a logging team, for which he must go to the farming districts. None but large, young cattle girting not less than seven and a half feet would satisfy his requirements, but if a steer was suitable in other respects, he cared little how wild or vicious he might be as his teamster would take a pride in "bringing up standing with a round turn" the wildest and seemingly most incorrigible animal.

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In a moderately large camp the crew would consist of a foreman, a teamster, two fallers, two sawyers, two skidders, two swampers, two barkers, a hand skidder, a hook tender, a skid greaser, a landing man, a cook and perhaps two or three extra hands, and the wages paid were about as follows: Teamster, $100 to $125 a month: foreman, $100; fallers, skidders, hook tenders and sawyers, $70 to $80; swainpers, 855 to $60; all others from $40 up. To earn these stipends, however, the men had to be experienced woodsmen, familiar with all the requirements of the work they might undertake to do.

An outfit secured and a crew hired, the logger would charter a steamer to convey all to the scene of operations. The day of departure was one of hustle, hilarity and excitement. The vessel's cargo would consist of a motley array of miscellaneous equipage-lumber for the camp. barn and sleeping sheds, baled hay and ground feed for the oxen, provisions and general mer- chandise in large quantities, blacksmithing tools, yokes, boom-chains, anchors, jackscrews, cables, pike poles, axes, saws, shovels, peaveys, etc., etc. On reaching their destination men and oxen would disembark, the provisions and tools would be piled up on the shore, and soon all hands would be busy in erecting sheds, setting up the cook stove and making other preliminary arrange- ments. Before a week had passed a thriving village would have sprung up in the heart of the forest.

As soon as everything was set in order the entire crew would be put to work, constructing a landing and various main roads into the

timber. The preliminary clearing away of brush and debris was the duty of the swampers. Skidders followed, smoothing up the ground with shovels and putting in the "skids," or timbers ten to eighteen inches in diameter and twelve to sixteen feet long.

These were arranged across the road and half or more than half buried in the ground, then chipped out at or near the center to form a run- way for the logs. They must needs be set care- fully, according to certain lines and natural principles or the road would be a failure, and in a rough country no little engineering skill was required of the skidder. When the landing was ready and roads were constructed sufficient to war- rant a start in taking out timber, the fallers, sawyers, teamsters and other men would be assigned to the specific duty for which they were hired, leaving the skidders to carry on all further road building alone.

In falling timber what are called spring boards were and still are universally employed. These are heavy plank-like pieces of wood, five feet long, about a foot wide at one end and five or six inches at the other, smooth on their upper surfaces, with a horse-shoe shaped piece of iron riveted to the small end. To permit their use deep notches are cut into the tree to be felled at

a convenient height above the ground, so shaped that when the little ends of the spring boards are fitted into them, the boards will have a horizon- tal position. The notches are also shaped to. permit the outer end of the spring board to be moved from side to side as convenience may require, while the toe-calk of the horse-shoe shaped iron before mentioned sinks into the upper surface of the notch and prevents the spring board from slipping out and falling to the ground. The advantages of these contriv- ances are obvious. They give the fallers a level surface to stand upon while at work and enable them to cut the trec at such a height above the- ground that the tough protuberances and "churn butt" are in most instances left in the stump. If large trees had to be felled by men standing on the ground, it would probably be necessary in many instances to cut away four or five feet from the butt, so that the first log could be hauled over the road without tearing up the skids.

Standing on their spring boards, the fallers make a shallow incision with their saw on the side toward which the tree is to fall, cut away with axes some of the timber above this so as to form a scarf, then turning around and swinging their spring boards back, take up their saw again and cut toward the scarf until the tree is ready to fall. By the scarf in front and the use of steel wedges behind the direction in which the tree shall fall may be very largely controlled, and skill in this work consists in so felling the timber that it may not be broken on striking the ground and may be "yarded out" with the greatest possible facility. It is interesting to watch the men at work on a large forest giant. The merry music of the saw gives place at inter- vals to the measured strokes of the heavy mallets as the steel wedges are hammered into the cut ; sawing and hammering continue alternately for some time. Finally a spasmodic quivering is noticed in the topmost twigs, the death shudder of the giant of ages; a few parting strokes are given the wedges; the tree starts downward, slowly at first: the fallers call out the last word of warning as they jump from their spring boards and rush back to a place of safety from the falling branches; there is a crashing sound as limbs from the tree itself and limbs from sur- rounding trees are torn off by the force of the fall; finally an awful crash, accompanied by a trembling of mother earth for yards around, announces the completion of the tragedy of the forest.

The sawyers come next and cut the tree into logs, one man operating a saw. This part of the programme would not be difficult if the tree would always lie in an ideal position, but it sel- dom does, and sometimes much skill and inge- nuity are required to prevent splitting the timber, or to overcome its tendency to bind on the saw. Occasionally it is necessary to saw

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from the bottom up, a difficult fcat, but one usually accomplished by standing a forked stick against the tree in which the saw rests back downward while being operated.

In order to reduce friction on the skids a por- tion of the bark must be removed from the logs, and to do this is the work of the barkers. `In the summer season, when the sap is circulating, the bark comes off very freely. At such times it was and still is customary to remove it all, but in winter, when the bark sticks, only that on the "riding" side of the log is removed. To find this particular side is the part of the barker's duty that requires experience and skill.

The use of the donkey engine in the woods has modified considerably the duties of the hook tender and has removed the necessity for much of the swamping and hand skidding, but in the days of logging by oxen, it was necessary to clear away brush and debris and make a rough pathway for the oxen from the skid road to the timber. This was the work of the swampers. The hand skidder supplied small, temporary skids to facilitate "yarding," while the duty of hook tender was to "snipe" the log (as round- ing off with a sharp axe the end to go ahead was called), to hitch the team to it by driving into it the large dog hook on the end of the ox chain and otherwise to assist the teamster in yarding out. If the log was in an awkward position or had to come up a steep hill so that the team could not pull it on a direct haul, a block and tackle was used. This consisted of one or more pulleys and a large rope or wire cable. The end of the cable was attached to a tree or stump in the direction the log was to be moved, the block itself was attached to the log and the team pulled on the other end of the cable. This arrangement doubled the power, and if a still greater purchase was necessary it could be had by the use of additional pulleys. The logs were "yarded" to the skid road one at a time, but a considerable number of logs varying with their size, the power of the team and other conditions, could be taken over the skid road to the landing. To facilitate hauling on the road, the skids were earefully swept after eachı "turn," and for the purpose of further reducing friction, the skid greaser walked between the team and the fore- most log and gave each skid as he came to it a brush of oil. As the timber logged in those days was close to the water's edge, the skid roads naturally had a general down grade, so that gravity assisted the team in getting the big logs to the landing. Sometimes in starting a load and often in yarding what is called a samson was used. This is a piece of timber about three feet long set up in front of the log and under the draft chain, in such a way that when the chain tightens it has a lifting effect, and overcomes any tendency of the log to plow into the ground or to butt against a skid.

Such in general was the logging method in the vogue prior to and during the middle eighties, though the process might be varied somewhat to suit special conditions or the fancy of individual operators.

It is thought that Blackman Brothers, of Snohomish, deserve credit for having introduced more improvements and appliances in the hand- ling of logs than any other firm of loggers on Puget sound. The Blackmans were mechanics by nature and training, also possessed in a high degree the inventive faculty.

Very early in the eighties they took out a patent on a huge logging truck, designed to run on wooden rails, which came into quite general use in the camps of the sound country. It was hauled at first by horses, but at a later date by steam, and eventually was superseded by the steanı logging railroad which, in its highest development, is not essentially different from the railroads in use throughout the country for general freight and passenger transportation.

It is said that Peter Boyce, now of Roosevelt, in Snohomish county, was the first to employ the donkey engine successfully in yarding in the woods, and that he did so in Blackman Brothers' camp. The donkey is an engine with a huge wooden platform for a base, the whole on large wooden runners. By means of a cable fastened to a tree or stump, it can pull itself around from place to place, and when in proper position and securely fastened, it develops such tremendous power that almost anything it may be hitched to has to come regardless of intervening obstacles. The use of the donkey in the woods and the steam railroad between there and the point to which the timber is to be delivered, has revolu- tionized the logging industry, and brought into the market large bodies of timber which were utterly inaccessible to loggers employing only oxen, horses or mules. While most of the logging on the sound to-day is done by steam, in some camps heavy draft horses are still used, but the days of the ox-team and the shouting, profane "bull-puncher" are gone forever.

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An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 76

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.) Publication date: 1906 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1172

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172