The Kennebec River Log Drive
by Mark Dennis


Old Time Log Drivers

The Kennebec River Log Drive is a fascinating aspect of Maine's history. Men worked hard both working in the woods getting the logs. and along the drive itself. There were a number of different jobs that the men had to perform and the equipment used was interesting. The working conditions were sometimes less than perfect but they made the best of it and even had fun at times.

On the log drive, boats played an important part. There were different kinds of boats for different jobs on the drive. Boats were used for pushing, towing, and winching. There were wooden boats, boats with motors and bateaux.There were Pullman and horsemen. They also used tugboats on the river drive. Some boats were wooden with eighteen horsepower motors. Other boats were twenty feet long, eighteen foot wide, and had a car engine.

In the woods, there were people for swamping and a teamster. Swamping was cleaning the trails of fallen wood and other debris. The teamster was someone that would take care of the sled and horses that they were assigned.

They had four to five men in a crew. They had a swapper, two choppers, one person to help unload the wood from the sled, and one person to tend the sled. The choppers and the teamster were the highest paid people in the crew. The choppers used crosscut and bucksaws. They had two men to a saw, to fell a tree. They also used axes to notch and trim the branches off the trees. In the old days the logs were peeled and stripped of bark because it was easier to handle and it dried faster. This saved time and money because it didn't have to be cut off. To peel the bark off the trees they used something called a sputa peeling iron which was one foot long and two inches thick. They would get paid ten-cents to peel a tree. It would take them four to five minutes to do it.

When there was snow on the ground, they would load the logs on onto a sled. These were like wagons, but instead of wheels they had skis. These sleds could be dragged through deep snow. One team of loggers could load twenty-two cords of wood onto two sleds. When the logs were cut, they were marked with a different letter to tell which log went to each saw mill company which saw mill company would get there own logs. Each company would get their own logs.

The workers said that the days were long and they had to work from daylight to about 9 to 9:30 at night. They say that they never saw the camps in the daylight. They worked ten hours a day and got only one day off a week. That eventually reduced to 9 hours a day. By doing this there was more production and less accidents. Before the decrease in hours, they were working 60 hours a week.

It would cost forty-five thousand dollars to put a nine mile road through woods. They had to build over ledges and any other obstacles that would come up. Even though it cost so much to build a road once they were done logging with it, they would never go back to it.

They had to build their own cabins to live in while logging in the woods. The biggest cabins they built could hold seventy to eighty people. They put tar paper on the roofs to keep the rain from leaking . Inside the cabins, they pounded nails in the walls to hang and dry their clothes on. Also to dry the clothes, they strung ropes the length of the cabin. The wood stoves in the cabins took three to four foot logs. They built the stove pipe to run the length of the cabin to heat it faster. They cooked all of their food on an open fire even cookies, cakes, biscuits. The men were fed very well on the log drive. During the 70's football and wiffelball were played right in the cabins, and sometimes even frisbee. When it was warm out, they went for a swim in the lake. They would also go out and look for a moose in the woods. If you were lucky someone in your cabin would have a guitar and you could sing and dance. During the 70's, the men would play cards, read books or tell stories. Some of the Canadians would bring harmonicas and they could step dance. Everyone agreed that it was much quieter then.

The Penobscot River drivers were much rowdier people. Almost all of the young single drivers on the Penobscot would go out. Their favorite place to go was at the Marshall Hotel up in The Forks.

When they were working on the logs, caulk boots were a must. Caulk boots were regular boots with nails stuck into them to get good traction while walking on the logs. The one bad thing about them was if they were worn in the boats, the nails would put holes in the bottom and it would sink.

During the spring the black flies were terrible. Some men said that the flies were just as much part of the job as pushing logs down the river. To keep the flies away, some men would put iodine and baby oil on their bodies. Another thing they learned was never to wear much blue because the black flies were attracted to it for some reason. [Another thing was when you get wet you wanted to be sure to dry off immediately because the moose flies would eat you alive.] Another problem they had was the blood suckers. Pants had to be tied to your legs so they couldn't get in.

Quite often the "out of staters" would try to show off to the Mainer's but all in all they only ended up embarrassing themselves like the man who lifted a log over his head but sunk in a sink hole. For all of the chances these men took, not very many of them drowned. I guess you could say they were pretty lucky. It's a good thing because the hospital was in Greenville and depending on where you were, that was pretty far away. Once in a while, a man died, and they had a custom that when a man died in the woods, he was not set down until he was out of the woods.

In conclusion, logging and the log drive are an important part of our history here in Maine and the hard work of the workers shouldn't be forgotten. They faced many challenges and were able to perform the difficult tasks in the process of getting the wood to the mills.

Contact Laura Richter for more information on this project.