KAFTESTG. 21 



tavern; there the question as to who was the best man and all other 

 disputes were duly fought out. The Allegheny raftsmen were a stal- 

 wart type, many of them Indians from the Salamanca Reservation; 

 and among them were not a few "bad" men, as they are termed in 

 modern slang. After receiving their pay at Pittsburg, they gener- 

 ally walked home to Cattaraugus County, some of them doing- easily 

 40 miles or more a day. 



It was a pleasant, jolly, outdoor life, floating down the river through 

 the forest-covered hills and mountains of the Alleghenies, gliding past 

 the clearings and cabins of pioneer farmers, and running through vil- 

 lages or cities where the bridges were lined with people waiting to see 

 the rafts go by. 



Sometimes the raft carried one or more passengers — friends of the 

 owner or pilot — people who were content with the plain fare and food 

 provided. 



But rafting had its trials and perplexities. Although the river dams 

 were built with chutes or aprons to facilitate the passage of rafts, some- 

 times the long, floating mass would swing in the wind and current and 

 "saddle bag" on the head of the bar below the dam. Then the boards 

 had to be "rafted over," occasioning a delay which, on a fast falling 

 freshet, often resulted in getting "stuck" again on some shoal farther 

 down the river. There the raft would lie all summer, the lower courses 

 filling with mud and the top course warping in the sun. 



Bridge piers were always a source of danger, especially where there 

 were three or four in close succession, as at Oil City and Pittsburo-. 

 Years ago the raftsmen delighted in telling the story of a Susquehanna 

 pilot who said that there were 30 piers in the Columbia bridge, and he 

 "run 'em all but one." The Susquehanna was a much more difficult 

 river for rafting than the Alleghem T — higher dams, more bridges, 

 larger rocks, and more shoal water. 



Mairy old-time lumbermen claimed that rafted lumber was better 

 than any other, because the soaking of the boards so diluted the sap 

 and resinous matter that when piled again in the yards it would season 

 better and quicker. But an}' advantage thus gained was more than 

 offset by the wet, muddy condition of the boards as they came from 

 the river. Each course had to be scrubbed with a broom, and even 

 then the front of each pile in the lumber yard was plastered with the 

 mud scraped off as the boards were drawn up over the edge. Then, 

 again, when the dried lumber was sent to the planing mill it was 

 covered with a thin coating of dirt and grit that dulled the planer 

 knives and filled the mill with a cloud of tine dust. 



Hewed timber was also rafted to market. Fifty years ago most of 

 the long timber was hewed instead of sawed, for the mills had no 

 appliances then for sawing long sticks. Moreover, the hewed timber 



