26 A RAFT PILOT'S LOG 



month, trip, or season, or took contracts to run rafts of 

 logs or lumber for so much per thousand feet. In the 

 latter case, the Pilot-contractor hired and paid his own 

 crew, besides furnishing the necessary kit of ropes 

 (called lines) to hold the logs together, making the 

 raft strong and stiff, and also to check and hold it when 

 landing. Some tools were required; besides axes, crank 

 augurs, pike poles, snatch poles, pikes, and peavies. A 

 prudent pilot would also provide a supply of plugs, 

 lockdowns, and brail-rigging, for repair work. Last of 

 all, he must have two safe, easy-rowing skififs. These 

 things had to be good or trouble was sure to follow. A 

 pilot or company that was known to be niggardly or 

 indifferent about the kit, often had to take men who 

 couldn't get work elsewhere. 



Furnishing the provisions, or "grub," was not so par- 

 ticular a matter, for little was expected in the way of 

 variety or delicacies. Salt meats, flour, cornmeal, beans, 

 and potatoes, with coffee and sugar, filled the bill. No 

 milk or butter was expected, but molasses, then plenti- 

 ful and cheap, was sometimes furnished. 



George Tromley, William Simmons, and David 

 Philumalee were the only "floating pilots" living in 

 Galena, remembered in my boyhood. Later, when 

 steamboats were used to guide and tow rafts down the 

 river, the term "raft pilot" applied to a pilot who pilot- 

 ed a raft and the boat towing it. He had to have a 

 government license to pilot the steamboat, while no 

 license was required to pilot a floating raft. Those 

 pilots were usually called "floaters," to distinguish 

 them from others running rafts with steam towboats. 



My father was engaged in a retail lumber business, 

 first in Galena, and afterwards in Princeton, a smaller 

 town, on the Mississippi. He secured all his supply 



