LOG-DRIVERS AND THEIR WORK. 25 



century. Former primitive methods of hauling- logs from the forest 

 to the mill were no longer adequate to supply the increasing demand. 

 The haul had become too long to be profitable, and there were no 

 canals or railroads in those days. Hence it became necessary for the 

 manufacturers either to move their sawmills upstream or to flood 

 their logs down to the mills. 



In a few years log-drivers were at work on every large river in the 

 State. Logs which were cut and skidded in the fall were hauled dur- 

 ing the winter to the shore of some stream, where they were piled in 

 huge tiers on the "banking grounds," as they were called on the Sus- 

 quehanna, or "landings" or "rolling-banks, ,, in northern New York. 

 With the first spring freshet, or often while the ice was still running, 

 the blocking was knocked loose and the great piles of logs allowed to 

 roll down into the turbid stream. When possible the logs were un- 

 loaded from the sleighs directly on the ice of some lake or stream, in 

 order that they might go out with the ice on the first spring flood. 

 (PI. VI, tig. 1.) 



In the lake region of the Adirondacks. river-drivers had the addi- 

 tional task of moving their logs through the lakes, where there was 

 no current to assist their progress, but too often a contrary wind, that 

 drove their logs back or scattered them. In passing through these 

 lakes lumbermen generally rafted the logs or inclosed them in strongly 

 connected booms, and then " warped " their way through the open 

 water by using an anchor, a long heavy cable, and an upright windlass 

 placed on the forward end of a strongly constructed raft. This work 

 was often done at night, or whenever the lake was still and free from the 

 strong winds so prevalent in early spring. Old river-drivers, in telling 

 of the early log-drives, still describe how through the long hours and 

 darkness they leaned wearily against the capstan bars as they tramped 

 round and round the platform while " kedging" their way through 

 the lakes. 



The work of the river-drivers was perilous. Scarcely a season 

 passed without someone being drowned or killed on some stream. 

 Men were crushed under swift-rolling logs at the banking grounds, 

 chilled to death in the icy waters, or killed in breaking the great jam 

 which formed at every obstruction in the river. The most dangerous 

 work was usually done by volunteers, and if all the deeds of heroism 

 and self-sacrifice performed by river-drivers while attempting to save 

 the life of some comrade in danger were recorded they would be found 

 to equal anything in the histories of fire. Hood, or battlefield. 



The drivers were necessarily men of stalwart build and superb phy- 

 sique. With surprising agility they would leap from log to log while 

 they were running down the rapid, swirling current; and. standing- 

 upright on a small log, with nothing to aid them buf a pike-pole or 

 level-, they would guide their treacherous craft as skillfully as an 

 Indian his eanoe. (PI. VI, fig. '2.) 



