644 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of the settlers living on the Eel River of a small herd 

 of cattle. These were secured at great expense from 

 San Francisco and driven with difficulty over rough 

 mountain trails to the settlement. Presiding over the 

 herd vN^as a bull of generous proportions and lengthy an- 

 cestry which soon became the pride of the settlement. 

 The coast Indians in the vicinity were not very friendly 

 to the new settlers and, regarding the bull as a fit sub- 

 ject for a grand feast, a band of about thirty of them 

 stole a march on the settlement one dark night and 

 made off with the bull which they killed without cere- 

 mony and carried to the depths of the big woods. The 

 settlers on discovering the loss armed themselves and 

 took up the trail with their hearts thirsting for ven- 

 geance. They came upon the barbecue while the feast 

 was at its height, the place selected by the Indians 

 being the banks of the little creek under the shade of 

 the mighty trees. The whites attacked without waiting 

 for the end of the feast and the Indians, being taken 

 by surprise, 

 and naturaJly 

 at a disadvan- 

 tage because 

 of the hearti- 

 ness of their 

 meal, were 

 slain to the 

 last man. 

 Henceforth the 

 creek was 

 known by its 

 present name, 

 but it is hard 

 for one walk- 

 ing through 

 this magnifi- 

 cent grove in 

 these peaceful 

 days to think 

 of it as the 

 setting for 

 such a bloody tragedy. Although this grove is privately 

 owned and in close proximity to logging operations, it 

 is possible that it may yet be purchased and preserved 

 in its present state through the efforts of the "Save the 

 Redwoods League." 



The logging and milling along the coast in the 70's 

 and 80's was very crude compared with present day 

 machinery and methods. The slow plodding bull teams 

 furnished the power for haulhig the logs a short dis- 

 tance to the bank of the stream into which they were 

 rolled, to lie, sometimes, for several years until a flood 

 of high water would come. Then there would be a 

 period of feverish activity until all the logs were safely 

 floated down to the mill. A pocket boom of logs chain- 

 ed together spanned the river near its mouth in order 

 to catch and hold the logs as they came down with the 

 current. Sometimes during a year of extra high water 

 the- pressure of the mass of logs and the swirling cur- 



REDWOOD SECOND GROWTH FORMS A DELIGHTFUL SETTING FOR SUMMER COTTAGES 

 AND HOTELS ALONG THE RUSSIAN RIVER WHICH IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR 

 RECREATION AREAS IN CALIFORNIA. 



rent became too much for the boom to hold and the 

 logs, representing years of labor and millions of feet 

 of timber, would be swept out into the ocean. ITiis 

 occurred at least once on each of the rivers running 

 through the redwood region and the battered remnantts 

 of logs lying half buried in the sand along hundreds 

 of miles of ocean beach are mute evidence to this day 

 of such catastrophes. 



The bull teams could not handle the butt logs of the 

 largest trees so it was common practice to build a 

 staging ten to fifteen feet high around the trees for 

 the fallers to stand on. So hig'h were some of these 

 stumps left that I recently saw two of them used as 

 platforms for summer cottage water tanks. The cot- 

 tage stood beside the stump and the top of the tank 

 was well over the peak of the cottage roof. Even after 

 leaving such high stumps, butt logs would often offer 

 too big a problem for the bull teams so that a section, 

 twenty or more feet long, had to be left where it fell. 



It is said that 

 some of the 

 early logging 

 on the Rus- 

 s i a n River 

 was done be- 

 fore double 

 bittfd axes or 

 crosscut saws 

 of sufficient 

 length were 

 available, the 

 trees being 

 chopped clear 

 through with 

 pole axes. I 

 have seen 

 stumps over 

 ten feet in 

 diameter with 

 axe marks 

 clear across 

 and could not help marvelling at the patience and ap- 

 parent dexterity of these woodsmen of an earlier day. 

 Many of the logs which reached the mill pond were 

 too large for the machinery and had to be split open 

 with powder before they could be handled. 



The size of these logs brings to mind the matter of 

 maximum size of trees and the maximimi yields per 

 acre on record. There are many stories current about 

 the size of this or that tree and it seems probable that 

 there have been trees over 25 feet in diameter and about 

 375 feet in height, but at the present time trees over 16 

 feet in diameter are very scarce and hard to find. The 

 largest tree in Bull Creek Flat is just over 16 feet at: 

 iy2 feet from the ground, but there must have been 

 larger trees along the lower Eel River and on the flats 

 adjacent to Humboldt Bay. Mr. Ivon Clar, of Guerne- 

 ville, Sonoma County, tells me that there is a stump 

 near that town which measures over 24 feet across and 



