40 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



himself as pleasant as possible, and especially addressed the wife. 

 He discanted on the beauties of the scenery, the gorgeous flowers, 

 tiie splendid timber, tlie purity of tlie air and water, and asked her 

 if it were not an ideal place to live. The old lady up to this time 

 liad uttered scarcely a word, but she now answered witli a weary 

 sigii : "Yes, mister preacher man, this is a fine country for men and 

 hound dogs, but it's hell for women and bulls." 



You often hear about the feudist of Kentucky and the Virginias. 

 Here is perhaps the best l-cnown of tliem all. This is a picture 

 of the famous Devil Anse Hatfield, the feudist of McCoy-Hattielil 

 fame, who lives up at the "head of the creek" about fifteen miles 

 from Devon station on the Norfolk & Western Railroad in West 

 \'irginia. He is a particular friend of mine, and I think a lot of 

 the old chap. He is as harmless as a kitten, and is loved by his 

 friends and respected by his enemies. I coaxed him six hours before 

 lie would let me take this picture, because, as he said, "I reckon 

 tiiere are about twelve indictments out ag'in me yet, and I don't 

 want to get too well known by all these trifling deputy sherifls." 

 I once asked him to tell me the story of his life, but the same 

 indictments stood in the way of personal reminiscences. On my 

 insi-sting that he tell me how the McCoy-Hatfield feud started, he 

 vouchsafed that it all came about over a little argument over a 

 "passel" of hogs. He says that the feud spirit has died out within 

 him and that he is a feudist no longer. He has taken a vow never 

 to step on Kentucky soil again and when he visits his friends 

 on the further side of the Tug, he does so from his skill'. Hatfield's 

 title of Devil Anse did not accrue to him through his feudist 

 record, but was the name he achieved in the confederate service for 

 his intrepidity and general foolhardiness during the War of the 

 Rebellion. Perhaps it is more of a habit than anything else which 

 makes him carry his Winchester in the crook of his left arm. 

 but you rarely see him without it. Now-a-days, he is a famous 

 bear hunter and has repeatedly invited me to share his hospitality 

 and go cruising for Bruin with him. 



Here is a picture of another famous mountain character. Quill 

 Rose, who lives far above the navigable waters of Eagle Creek in 

 Swain County, North Carolina. Quill does not make any "moon- 

 sliine" now-a-days. but has had the rei)utation of having produced 

 more and better whisky than any man in the mountains. He and 

 the "old lady," and his ■'valler" mule now are engaged in peaceful 

 agricultural ]nirsuits. One day he did show me the remnints of 

 his old still and former greatness and told me a good deal of the 

 iletails of how corn whisky should he. to be made right. He also 

 told me that he "met up" with a stranger once who insisted that 

 I he quality of "moonshine" could Ik' nmidi improved by aging it. 

 W'liat this fellow meant by "agin." tin- old man explaineil, was 

 leaving it stand for a while before you drank it. 



"There is nothing in it," he continued, "but that there trilling 

 stranger talked so much about it that I finally tried it. I hid out 

 a two-gallon jug of "moonshine' in the laurel for more than a week, 

 anil wlien 1 got it back to the cabin. I found it wasn't ;i bit better 

 than it was warm from the still. 1 tell you, there is nothing in 

 this 'agin' whisky business." 



I can't tell you this man's name because I don't want to, but 

 he is a typical North Carolina "moonshiner." I asked him if he 

 was making any "shine" just now, and he said to me: "No, 1 am 

 not, but I am fixing up my mash tubs and don't know what I 

 'mought' do." 



This innocent looking yoke of oxen and vehicle would scarcely 

 convey to the mind of any one that within this apparent household 

 moving wagon is concealed a half barrel of ^'moonshine" in kegs, 

 jugs and bottles, but such is the fact. This is one of the sundry 

 ways it is peddled from house to house through the mountain 

 countiy to such denizens as do not know how to make it or are 

 afraid to enter into the manufacture of "mountain dew." 



Another moonshiner and his son. He is a clever chap and has 

 about as much fear of a revenue officer as he has of a striped 

 snake. These government officers. I might mention, are usually 

 "kin folks" of most of the residents, and one of them had broken 

 up this man's still and taken away the worm. At the time of my 

 visit, in some wa\- his wife had secured a wreck of an old-fashione I 

 cflok stove with which she was going to supplement her fire-place. 

 Unfortunately, the stove had no pipe. She asked me as a special 

 favor when I got back to Knoxville to send her a half <lozen lengths 

 of stove pipe. This I agreed to do. 



This man came around to me the next morning as I was depart- 

 ing and said: "The old woman has got you to fix her up with 

 some stovepipe. Now. Mliile you're buyin' ])ipe over in Knoxville, 

 1 reckon perhaps you mought as well buy a little piiJC for me. 

 Suppose you semi me down four lengths of copper ])ipe about an 

 inch and a half through, three feet long, anil say, these railroad' 

 fellows are so keerles in handling stull', ])erhaps you better have it 

 nailed up in a box," 



1 promised to do this stunt for him also, but named as a con- 

 dition that he tell me how he could manufacture a still and a 

 worm out of four chunks of copper pipe, and especially, how with 

 his primitive tools, he could coil the idpe. 



"Why," he replied, "that's sure easy. If you give me some 



sheets of copi)er and a pncketful of rivets and this pipe, I can 

 fix up a .still and have it running in twenty-four hours. Making 

 the worm is the easiest part of it. All I do is to pack the pipe 

 with sand, bend it around a sapling, and then jar the sand out 

 of it." It icas dead easy after you knew how. 



I am showing this picture to get even with the man it depicts. 

 This is Leon Isaacson, of the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company, 

 vice-president, president pro tern, woods engineer, general woods 

 boss, s])lash dam builder and tireless man of the mountains who 

 last fall ])iloted me over a million miles of Dickinson County. 

 Virginia, and had little respect for my stomach, my age. or my 

 inability tn fnllow in the woods a veritable human cyclone. This 

 snapshot was made as he was steering me down the "Grand 

 Canyon of Virginia," sometimes known as the brakes of the Big 

 Sandy. Just at this moment, he was harking back to the big 

 diun|i |)i)plar logs we had left at Russel Fork above this gash in 

 the earth, at the bottom of which runs the river. He answered my 

 query as to the value of the logs, "C4uess." 1 told him I hadn't 

 mental vitality enough left to even make a guess. He said: "When 

 these logs are in the form of lumber and i)iled up at (?<ial Grove, 

 it will mean a million dollars." 



Now 1 am .going to give you the good part of the show. 



Early in November, when I visited the logging operations of the 

 Y'ellow Poplar Lumber Company in Virginia, I said to Mr. Isaacson 

 and Mr. (_ rawford, "It is a shame we cannot have a moving plctiue 

 show of this entire operation." 



They echoed the sentiment. 



Then it occurred to me it was possible. By dint of considerable 

 telegraphing to a friend, a theatrical nnigirate of Chicago, 1 

 ascertained that the leading makers of moving pictures were the 

 Essanay Film ^Manufacturing Company, of that city, and after 

 further telegrajihing, I succeeded in getting this concern to send 

 a, grou]) of photographers down into the wilds and make the films 

 we will now show you. 



A crew of "hicks" starting with their saws and axes to cut the 

 kerf « hicli directs the falling of the tree in the desired dii-ection. 



The men are sowing down the tree from the o|)]iosite side. 



This giant of the forest falls. 



'The great stump that remains. 



The "woods boss" measuring the tree for cutting to log lengths. 



This process is known as "scalping" the log: i. c, removing the 

 bark. This enables the logs to he skidded ea.sier and militate* 

 again.st sap-rot or wood borers getting into the timber if the logs 

 are left over a season. 



The big logs being hauled to the skid with four-nuile teams. 

 These teams are the best live stock 1 ever saw in the woods. 'I hey 

 tell me that they cost .$27.5 a head in the St. Louis market. 



The logs being hauled to the skidways, to which they are rolled 

 to be within eirsy reach of the railroad and of the steam log loader. 



The great white triangle noted fin the end of each log is the 

 log mark or the trade mark of the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company. 



Loo.sening the steel dogs from the ends of the chains by which 

 the logs are snaked. 



Cars being switched along the railroad. 



A scaler is seen measuring the logs. The average diameter of 

 these logs is nearly three feet. 



A section of the logging tram-road on which wooden rails are 

 employed. The cost of manufacturing the wooden rails and building 

 the tram, which lasts long enough to clean out the timber area, is 

 less expensive than the freight and team hauling alone would be on 

 moving steel rails to the operation. 



These logging cars are hauled by geared locomotives. This form 

 of locomotive is able to pull a train of logs and negotiate a fourteen 

 per cent, grade. 



The steam log loader, of Decker type, one of the famous loaders 

 manufactured by the 'Clyde Iron Works, of Duluth, ilinnesota. 



The big dump of poplar sticks in the Russel Fork of the Big 

 Sandy river, alxiut one mile above the brakes of the Big Sandy. 

 With the aid of Lidgerwood skidding apparatus, these logs are 

 closely piled in the gorge to a height of fifty feet. This dump when 

 I saw it was more than two-thirds of a mile in length and con- 

 tained more than thirty-six thousand large virgin forest yellow 

 poplar sticks of timber, ranging in length from twelve to thirty- 

 eight feet, with an average of 7i)0 feet to the piece, amounting to 

 81.000 logs of sawmill length, with a total log scale of 30.000,000 

 feet. 



This is the largest assemblage of poplar logs ever made in the 

 history of hardwood manufacture and is a part of the 40.000,000 

 feet log crop that will be manufactured by the Yellow Poplar 

 Lumber Company during the year 1010. 



Below this dump is located an immense concrete splash dam 

 360 feet in length and 25 feet in height alxive the toe sill. The dam 

 contains five flues, forty feet in width, the openings of which are 

 closed with false work of timber and planking and all are released 

 simultaneously by a dynamite explosion when a head of water is 

 secured. Then the entire mass of water and logs are hurled through 

 the flues and the logs are driven down the gorge to floating water 



