204 a raft pilot's log 



The Last Raft -the end of the game 



The first rafts run from 1838 to 1843 were lumber 

 from the Wisconsin river and from Saint Croix falls. 



The last raft brought down the Mississippi was also 

 of lumber sawed and rafted at Hudson, Wisconsin, on 

 Lake Saint Croix. It was in eight strings, thirty-six 

 cribs long and rafted twenty-eight courses deep. They 

 made a raft one hundred and twenty-eight feet wide 

 and eleven hundred and fifty feet long, which contained 

 three and one-half million feet of lumber and it carried 

 about a million feet of top load consisting of timbers, 

 lumber and lath. 



This raft was towed by the steamer "Ottumwa Belle" 

 with the "Pathfinder" as a bow-boat. The little steamer 

 "J. M.," that had been engaged in towing logs from 

 Saint Paul boom to Prescott was hitched in alongside 

 the raft near the bow and taken down river to be sold. 



Captain W. L. Hunter of Winona was in charge as 

 master and pilot and made a nice, clean trip from Hud- 

 son to S. & J. C. Atlee at Fort Madison in fourteen days 

 with a single crew. 



Captain Hunter had been on the "Ottumwa Belle" 

 doing Atlee's running until the logs gave out, but in 

 191 5 was piloting on the "Morning Star" in the Daven- 

 port and Saint Paul trade. 



Mr. Atlee wanted Captain Hunter to run this last 

 raft and Captain Hunter was pleased to do it; so we 

 arranged that I would stand his watch on the "Morning 

 Star" while he made the trip that wound up the great 

 industry that had lasted seventy-five years and really 

 made all the good towns on the Upper Mississippi. 



It started in a small way and demanded skill and 

 hard work to cut the logs and drive them down to the 

 booms where they were held, assorted, rafted and scaled 



