Yes, Harry Gustin, Pete and me
Tee Hanson and some two or three
Of good and truthful lumbermen
Came on that famous camp again.
In west of Graylin’ 50 miles,
Where all the face of Nature smiles,
We found the place in ’84—
But it had changed some since the war.
The fire had run some Summer through
And spoiled the logs and timber, too.
The sun had dried the river clean
But still its bed was plainly seen.
And so we knew it was the place
For of the past we found a trace-
A peavey loggers know so well,
A peavey with a circle L,
Which, as you know, was Bunyan’s mark.
The hour was late, ’twas gittin’ dark;
We had to move. But there’s no doubt
It was the camp I’ve told about.
We eastward went, a corner found,
And took another look around.
Round River so we learned that day,
On Section 37 lay.
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THE SHANTY BOYS
Life in the early days of the lumbering business in northern Wisconsin would be a closed book, had it not been for the songs of the shanty boys, which constitute the real folklore of that region.
The beautiful white pine, known also as the cork pine, was plentiful at one time in the northern forests. Beginning about the time of the end of the Civil War, crews of men, equipped with axes and saws, moved from one forest to another, cutting, skid-ding and later riding the logs down swift rivers to some convenient sawmill, where the logs were cut into fine timber. Those operations were carried on, until 1902, by the adventurous, daring soldiers of fortune, known as shanty boys. To say the least one can, of the short-sightedness of lumbermen during this period, with avarice and greed, with the aid of elastic laws, they allowed the mills of the gods to grind fast, but not fast enough to completely mar the most beautiful forests in the world today.
Many a family of social prestige and financial standing was founded by immigrant lads, who worked in the tall pines in those early days. The world outside of the lumber camps called these soldiers of fortune, lumberjacks, but the
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