2 54 REPORT OF THE 



raft was " snubbed " until its momentum was slowly overcome. Yielding to the 

 importunities of the crew, the pilot generally tied up in an eddy near some town or 

 village, in which case there were plenty of other rafts in the same place, and the 

 men repaired quickly to the tavern, where the question as to who was the best man 

 and all other disputes were duly fought out. The Allegheny raftsmen were a stal- 

 wart type, many of them Indians from the Salamanca reservation ; and among them 

 were not a few "bad " men, as they are termed in modern slang. Having been paid 

 off at Pittsburg, they generally walked home to Cattaraugus County, some of them 

 doing easily forty miles or more a day. 



It was a pleasant, jolly, outdoor life, floating down the river through the forest- 

 covered hills and mountains of the Alleghanies, gliding past the clearings and cabins 

 of pioneer farmers, and running through villages or cities where the bridges were 

 lined with people waiting to see the rafts go by. 



Sometimes the raft carried one or more passengers — friends of the owner or 

 pilot — people who were content with the plain fare and food provided. The writer 

 remembers one trip — about 1868 — when, just after passing Corydon Dam, he swung 

 in to the bank in response to an urgent hail, whereupon a stout young fellow accom- 

 panied by a buxom girl sprang aboard. He told me that he had been married that 

 morning, was on his " weddin' tower," and wanted to go to Franklin. He did good 

 work on one of the forward oars, while the bride assisted in peeling potatoes and 

 washing the tin ware. 



But rafting, as well as other branches of the lumber business, had its trials and 

 perplexities. Although the river dams were built with a chute or apron to facili- 

 tate the passage of rafts, sometimes the long floating mass would swing in the wind 

 or current so that it would " saddle-bag" on the head of the bar below the dam. 

 Then the boards had to be " rafted over," occasioning a delay which, on a fast-fall- 

 ing freshet, often resulted in getting "stuck" again on some shoal farther down the 

 river, where the raft would lie all summer, the lower courses filled with mud and 

 the top course warping in the sun. 



Bridge piers were also a source of danger, especially where there were three 

 or four in close succession, as at Oil City and Pittsburg. Years ago raftsmen 

 delighted in telling the story of a Susquehanna pilot who said that there were 

 thirty piers in the Columbia bridge, and he " run 'em all but one." The Susque- 

 hanna was a much more difficult river for rafting than the Allegany — higher dams 

 more bridges, larger rocks and more shoal water. 



It was claimed by many of the old time lumbermen that rafted lumber was 

 better than any other, because the soaking of the boards diluted the sap and resi- 



