Fifty Years In The Northwest
logging camp as camp boy. During the second winter he hired me to
Matthew and Lewis Dunbar as a cook for their wood camp. I cooked for
six men and received five dollars a month. I was used very kindly by
the Dunbars, but that winter in the woods seemed a long, long winter.
The only book in camp was the Bible. There were, however, newspapers
and playing cards. In the spring my father used the fifteen dollars
received for my three months' work to purchase a cow. I served the
Dunbars the third winter, as cook, for six dollars a month, and worked
the ensuing summer on farms at about twenty-five cents per day. During
the fourth winter I worked for the Dunbars and Timothy Snow at seven
dollars per month, and the summer following worked on a farm for
Benjamin Cayford at seven dollars. Cayford was a merciless tyrant, and
sometimes compelled his men to work in the field till nine o'clock at
night. These details of wages paid and work done, uninteresting in
themselves, serve to show the value of a boy's work (I was not yet
fifteen) and what was expected of the average boy, for mine was no
exceptional case nor was my father more exacting than others in his
station in life. He was in poor health, and had a large family of
boys. We were eight in number, and of these I was one of the most
robust and able to assist in the support of the family.
This year I persuaded my father to sell me my time, which amounted to
five years, which he reluctantly did, accepting two hundred and fifty
dollars as an equivalent. It was my ambition to go West. Horace
Greeley had not uttered the talismanic words, "Go West, young man,"
but I believed that by going West I would be better able to advance my
own interests and assist my parents. My father signed the necessary
paper relinquishing my time, which was printed in the Skowhegan
_Clarion_. From this time until I was nineteen years old I worked on
the river and on farms, worked continuously and beyond my strength. I
worked another summer for Cayford, but have no pleasant recollections
of him, for on his farm I was sadly overworked, being often called to
work before sunrise and kept at work after sunset. I worked two
winters cooking in the woods for Capt. Asa Steward, of Bloomfield, one
of the best men I ever served, a kind hearted, honest Christian. He
gave me good counsel and good wages besides. In the fall of 1835 I
went into the woods to work for Capt. Eb. Snow, of Madison. Like
Cayford, he was a merciless tyrant and abusive to his men. I left his
camp before my engagement closed, not being able to endure his abuse
longer. This is the only time in which I failed to keep a labor
engagement. I finished the winter with Capt. Asa Steward, but my eyes
became so inflamed from the smoke of the camp that I was obliged to
abandon cooking.
During this winter occurred an incident that came near having a
serious and even fatal termination. There were three of us, Simeon
Goodrich, Jimmie Able and myself, who went down the Kennebec to the
Forks, a distance of twelve miles from camp. A deep, damp snow had
fallen the night previous, and through this snow, reaching above our
knees, we trudged wearily till Able gave out. We carried him a short
distance, but becoming exhausted ourselves, laid him down in the snow.
To remain with him would be to imperil the lives of all; by hurrying
on we might be able to send a party to bring him in. We carefully
made for him a bed of fir boughs and placed loose garments over him
and under him, and as he was sick, weak and faint, gave him a draught
of liquid opodeldoc, and leaving the bottle with him, hurried on. We
traveled the last mile through an opening. Snow drifted deeply. We
dragged our bodies through the drifts in the direction of a glimmering
light, which proved to be Sturgis' hotel, which we reached at 11
o'clock P. M. A team was sent back immediately for the lost Able by a
road of which we knew nothing. The rescuing party met him trudging
along with all his baggage. The opodeldoc had revived him, and he had
traveled a full mile when he met the rescuing party. At two o'clock
the team returned bringing the lost wayfarer.
Another adventure terminated more disastrously than this. In the
spring of 1835 I was employed in taking logs across Moosehead lake.
The logs were in booms, and were moved by a capstan and rope. This was
before the days of steamboats, and the moving of the booms was no
light task. On this occasion a gale of wind struck us and drifted us
across the lake. We threw out an anchor, hoping to check the course of
the boom and swing it into Cowan's bay. In one of our throws the
anchor tripped, or caught fast, and suddenly tightened the line. Our
whole crew were in an instant hurled headlong. Some were thrown into
the water. One man (Butler) had his ribs broken. All were more or less
injured. The capstan went overboard. The old boom swung on and on,
and, passing Spencer's bay, broke and went to pieces on the shore. The
logs were with great difficulty regathered, but were finally brought
to the outlet of the lake July 4th, the last raft of the season.
After river driving in the spring of 1835, I went to the Penobscot
river and found employment at twenty dollars a month at East Great
Works, building a dam. John Mills, our superintendent, was a good man.
There was a lyceum here, the first I ever attended. In December I
returned to the Kennebec, and in the spring of 1836 went to Dead river
to drive, but an attack of the measles and general ill health, with
symptoms of pulmonary derangement, compelled me to abandon the work. I
had lived nine years on the Kennebec, years of hard labor and exertion
beyond my strength, and in that time had earned enough to pay my
father two hundred and fifty dollars. I had been able to purchase a
small library, and had two hundred dollars in cash to defray my
expenses to the West.
REMINISCENCES.--He that leaves the home of his youth for a strange
land carries with him memories, pleasant to recall, of scenes and
incidents, the influence of which he feels to the latest hour of life.
There are some things he can not forget. They may not be an essential
part of his own life history, but still they have found a place in his
mind and seem a part of himself, and he recurs to them again and again
with ever increasing delight. There are other things, may be, not so
pleasant to dwell upon, which still have a place in his memory and may
be profitably recalled. No one who has ever lived in Maine can forget
its dark pine forests, its rugged hills, its rushing streams, cold and
clear as crystal, its broad lakes, the abundant game of its forests
and the fish in its waters. The Minnesota and Wisconsin pioneers, who
with the author of this book claim Maine as an early home, will not
object to the insertion in this chapter of a few of these
reminiscences.
MOOSEHEAD LAKE.--My first visit to Moosehead lake was in the early
winter of 1834. At that time it was still in the wilderness, only two
settlers having found their way to its shores. We were going with a
six ox team to a camp on the Brasua and our road led us across the
frozen lake. Emerging from a beech and maple grove on the margin near
Haskell's, our sled plunged downward, and in a moment we found
ourselves on the gray ice of the lake, with a wonderful panorama
spread out before us. The distant islands and the shores, hilly and
mountainous, stood out plainly between the winter sky and the ice
covered lake. The mirage added its finishing touches to the picture,
increasing the brightness and apparent size of distant objects, or
lending them brilliant hues, the whole scene sparkling in the frosty
sunlit air, making a vision of beauty that could not fade. On we
trudged over the ice, the sled creaking, the ice emitting a roaring
sound, not unlike the discharge of a park of artillery, sounds
produced by the expansion of the ice. We trudged on past islands and
craggy, rock-bound shores, passed Burnt Jacket, Squaw and Moxey
mountains in the east, Lily and Spencer bays at the southeast, Misery
and other mountains in the west, while far away to the north of east
towered white old Katahdin. Before us loomed up the flint rock Kinneo,
its perpendicular face fronting west, on the lake; at the base a
beautiful maple interval extending toward Spencer bay.
The following spring our boom lay wind-bound at the base of Kinneo,
and we seized the opportunity of climbing the vast pile of flinty
rocks composing it, and obtained thence a view of unparalleled beauty,
including the broad, bright lake, fairy islands, mountains and hills
and vast stretches of pine forests. The tourist might seek far and
wide, vainly, for a landscape rivaling this.
MOOSE HUNTING.--The lake and surrounding country offer unrivaled
attractions to the sportsman. The lake abounds in fish, of which the
lake trout is the most abundant in number and delicious in flavor.
Specimens are frequently taken weighing from ten to fifteen pounds.
The forests at that time abounded in wild animals, chief of which was
the moose, the largest and the homeliest of the deer family. With his
long, narrow head, small eyes, donkey-like ears, pendant lips, the
upper one curling like a small proboscis, with his high shoulders and
giraffe-like hips, with his short, round body, long and clumsy legs,
he is as distinguished for his want of grace and comeliness as the red
deer is for its presence. No animal is better adapted for its own home
and mode of life. Their heavy coat of hair adapts them to high
latitudes. With their curved upper lip they take hold of the branches
of the trees, and with their strong teeth and paws they are able to
peel off the tender bark of saplings and small trees. The moose, when
attacked, is fierce, resolute, defiant, and defends himself in a
masterly manner, striking with his fore legs with such precision that
the hunter is obliged to keep at a respectful distance. The male moose
wears a remarkable pair of horns of annual growth, to which each year
a prong is added. The home of the moose is the northern part of the
North Temperate Zone.
Moose hunting is a healthy though laborious pastime. The hunter must
be an expert, and it requires years of practice to become skillful. He
must build his camp in the wilderness, packing thither his food,
blankets, camp utensils and gun. With his pack of dogs he starts out
in search of a moose yard. This is generally in some well timbered
district. The snow in winter is generally from three to six feet deep,
but the moose has broken paths through this to facilitate his
movements through the forest, and here he roams about in fancied
security, browsing on the young shrubs, but the hunter finds his
hiding place. In such case he conceals himself in the snow near one of
these paths and waits patiently till the moose passes, when he fires
upon him. If the moose is killed at once the hunter waits patiently in
his hiding place till another and another comes up to share a like
fate. If the moose is only wounded he starts off as rapidly through
the snow as his long legs will carry him, pursued by the hunter and
his dogs. The hunter has all the advantages of the position, being
mounted on snowshoes, thus being able to move with comparative
swiftness, while the moose plunges heavily through the snow, and at
last, weakened by loss of blood, he is overtaken and easily killed.
MOUNT BIGELOW.--This is a noble, grand, historical mountain, situated
on the south side of Dead river, in Franklin county. For years it had
been my strong desire to make the ascent, and in May, 1833, the desire
was gratified. With six others, I left camp, and by evening reached
Green's hotel, where we obtained lodgings for the evening. At early
dawn, having supplied ourselves with lunch, tin cup and hatchet, we