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| Volume XXXVIII, Number 2 |
Summer, 2003
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| S. A. Soule Logging
Chinook "Kathlamet Texts" |
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| Volume XXXVIII, Number 2 |
Summer, 2003
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| S. A. Soule Logging
Chinook "Kathlamet Texts" |
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| The
Sou'wester |
| ISSN #0038-4984
Copyright, 2003, by the Pacific County Historical Society. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the Society's Editorial Board. The Sou'wester is a quarterly publication of the
Pacific County Historical Society and Museum. The Pacific County
Historical Society is a non-profit 501(C)(3) organization in South Bend,
Washington.
In addition to the Sou'wester, the Society publishes a quarterly newsletter for its members and operates the Pacific County Historical Society Museum in South Bend, Washington.
Design and electronic page layout by Charles B. Summers,
South Bend, Washington.
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| The
Sou'wester Summer Issue, 2003
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Willapa Valley loggers pose with an impressive flatcar load of Doublas Fir, circa. 1910. Pioneer logger S. A. "Forney" Soule is seen smoking a pipe at the far right. Courtesy of Adolph Huber. PCHS #2003.89.10 1 |
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Leo Millam wrote us after publication of his oyster cannery story last year to point out that the Cron operation where he worked was located in what became the Long Island Oyster Co. building (later Coast Oyster) at the west end of South Bend. Later in the 1930s, the Cron plant moved to the terminal grounds buildings depicted with the story. My apologies to Leo for assuming the location of his story without confirmation. Reaching back to page 8 of the Summer 2001 Sou’wester story about early Pacific County seats, Bob Bailey writes that records of the election of 1860 have been found at State Archives. The text of Bob's explanation can be read on page 16 in this issue. Former Sou’wester editor Larry Weathers also contacted me regarding the county boundaries maps in the same issue, pointing out that Chinookville is marked in the wrong location on page 13. The actual location was the same as McGowan, several miles further east from where it appears on the map we published. Larry was the expert when it came to courthouse lore, and his sudden passing is a great loss for local history. His commitment to The Sou’wester assured its survival, and his knowledge and passion for Pacific County history will be missed. Over the next several years we plan to publish the authentic local Indian stories preserved by Charles Cultee and Franz Boas in Kathlamet and Chinook Texts. Today few people are aware of the rich cultural heritage of Chinookan Peoples preserved in out of print books like the old Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology publications. One of the great tragedies of the past 200 years is the loss of cultural diversity around the world. While all humans are similar under the skin, there are many different ways to make sense out of the world. We are very fortunate that men like Boaz and Cultee shared an interest in recording the unique culture of peoples that lived along the Lower Columbia River for thousands of years. The Sou’wester has previously published an article by Daniel Boxberger and Herbert C. Taylor Jr. about the Boaz – Cultee collaboration in Volume 21, Number 1 Spring, 1986, which is still in print and available at the Society’s museum store. I won’t waste space here repeating what these distinguished anthropologists have already said, but I would like to orient the reader to aspects of the stories that follow that some may find surprising or disturbing. Like many people, my introduction to Indians came in Cub Scouts. The appealing tales of a deeply spiritual and noble people left a positive impression on this White, suburban youth. Like many my age, I knew no Indians, but enjoyed fantasizing about being Indian, and living in harmony with the land. Not quite civilized, but part of a tribal group that represented a more fundamental type of human relationship than that of modern westernized, industrial society around me. As I grew up and left the Scouts behind, I rarely thought much about Indians, but carried around the positive feelings nurtured in those early years. After finishing school, museum work again brought me in contact with things Indian, but it was not until moving to South Bend in 1992 that I began to get a realistic picture of how things were and are in Indian Country. Only two hundred years have passed since Lewis and Clark paid a brief visit to what is now Pacific County. The history here is fresher than almost anywhere else on this continent. The rate of change during this period has, however, been extremely rapid. Much evidence of the pre-settlement time has been obliterated. Existing Indian tribes and reservations are some of the few reminders that the majority of people who have ever lived here were non-Whites. Even the reservations bear the indelible mark of White political/legal dominance. I suppose it is a bias from growing up in the majority racial/ethnic/political culture that the question of who is, and who is not an Indian should be determined by the government seems strange to me. Being immersed in Pacific County history for the last dozen years, it wasn’t long before I learned of Charles Cultee; someone I like to call the most intelligent man who ever lived here. I have always struggled with languages, and to find out that “Old Man” Cultee was able to translate from Chinook and Chehalis to English, as well as explain the grammar of each to a German anthropologist using a trading language (roughly the equivalent of Wall Streets specialized jargon) is a wonder to me. Tracy Ridout donated a copy of Kathlamet Texts to the Historical Society several years ago, and we have since been able to acquire the companion volume, Chinook Texts. At first reading, the stories told by Cultee and transcribed by Boaz seem bizarre, and sometimes gruesome. Definitely, a far cry from what I now realize were the sanitized stories of my cub scout days. Of course by the standards of today’s Hollywood movies and novels very little of this kind of material should be a shock. I must admit to having a few second thoughts about reprinting the Texts material in The Sou’wester. Just in case, I feel I should warn readers that some people might consider this adult reading. On balance, however, I think that reproducing the stories as they were originally printed is the right thing to do. Anything else would be dishonest to Cultee’s memory. This is as close as we will ever come to seeing the world as Indians from Charles Cultee’s generation saw it. Bruce Weilepp, Editor |
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| Soule's Tree Farm
By Robert Gehrman
The forests of Pacific County have
seen many changes during the past 100 years. Each acre can tell a
story of birth, death, and renewal in a continuous cycle up to the present
day. Every once in a while enough information comes to light about
a particular place to put together a reasonably complete picture of man
and his environment.
Photos and additional information provided by Adolph Huber In 2004 the American Tree Farm program certified Huber’s Soule Tree Farm in the upper Willapa Valley for exceptional management and sustainability. As part of the certification process Mr. Huber collected historical documents for the property, which allow us to recreate patterns of ownership, harvest, and changing management back to 1889. During this period, logging technology shifted from oxen, to steam, to modern feller-bunchers. At first logs from the area were transported to market by water, later by railroad, and eventually by public highway. Early loggers selectively logged high value trees such as Douglas fir, while leaving behind lesser value species such as hemlock, spruce and cedar. Steam era loggers of the early 20th Century clearcut most of the remaining trees, and left the land to reforest itself. The second growth forest was logged in 1950 and again in 1980. This time the land was replanted, and the next harvest will probably take place in about 20 years. |
S. A. "Forney" Soule, 1886. PCHS #2004.5.2 |
| In 1988, Robert
Gehrman wrote to Huber, recounting his memories of family and work on what
is now the Soule Tree Farm:
“Here are the pictures of Soule’s logging camp. In 1892, a photographer came over the trail from Chehalis by horseback with his outfit on a pack-horse. He took pictures around Soule’s operation, did the developing and printing in a tent and sold as many pictures as the loggers would buy, then moved on. My father [Charles M. Gehrman, 1889-1941] found the old pictures in a trunk, very faded and yellowed. My uncle Emil, a Bellingham photographer, used infrared film to make negatives, which restored the detail in the original pictures. These prints are from the original pictures. “During my boyhood, I listened with great interest as my grandfather told of his days with Soule’s where he worked as an ox-teamster, and straw-boss on the river drive when they splashed logs to tidewater at Willapa. There the logs were rafted for towing to the Asa Simpson mill at South Bend. My Grandmother Louise Gehrman was cook at the camp and my father and his two brothers, George and John helped wherever they could around camp. My Grandfather, Mike Gehrman, told me their wages were as follows:
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Clara A. Bullard Soule wedding photo, 1886. PCHS #2004.5.3 |
When splashing logs down the
river, the water would tend to out run the logs, and many logs from one
splash would be left stranded to be picked up by the next splash.
A second dam near Nalpee would gather the logs and concentrate them for
another splash which would take then to tidewater at Willapa.
“When I moved from Vail, Washington, to Oregon in 1949, I was fortunate to get the opportunity to watch a splash dam operation on the South Fork of the Coos River by the Irwin-Lyons Co. Their woods operation was a conventional diesel high-lead yarder and a truck haul to their upper splash dam. They also had a catch-up splash dam about half-way to tidewater. Their superintendent told me they moved their logs 18 miles to the tidewater rafting area for about 50 cents per thousand board feet, a very efficient way to move logs. However, they changed to a truck haul that Fall. The state fisheries dept. strenuously objected to the effect of splashing logs on the fish in the river. Most serious of all, the back country was becoming infested with people and they felt that unless they stopped, some stranger who did not realize the hazard along the stream would be caught in a splash and killed. There was really little warning ahead of the sudden arrival of a 20 ft. freshet of water and logs.” In a phone conservation this year, Mr. Gehrman added that during the 1920s the Willapa River experienced some of the heaviest salmon runs in local memory. This proved, he feels, that splash dam operations on the Willapa River had not done any serious damage to the fish habitat. |
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Map for S. A. Soule, Raymond Lumber, Case Shingle and Lumber logging operations, 1910 to 1920. Prepared from information provided by R. Dale Jost M. D., March 28th, 2004 |
The Soule Farm near Frances, Washington, circa 1911. Courtesy of Adolph Huber. PCHS #2003.99.1 5 |
| Willapa Valley Logging
By J.T. Stratton
Editor’s note: This story
was prepared by Tom Stratton and read by Ray Wheaton at a 1957 meeting
of the Pacific County Historical Society. The author refers to a
time period beginning in 1870, when the first steam sawmill in South Bend
started. The teams referred to were pairs of oxen, castrated male
cattle, introduced to the Pacific Northwest from ranches in California
during the 19th Century. The South Bend mill, built by the Riddel
Brothers, was the first significant export mill on what was then called
Shoalwater Bay. The company created a local market for logs, and
brought in manufactured goods, which were sold in the company store.
County Commissioner and State Representative Previous to team logging, the
South Bend mill was supplied by hand logging. That is, logs were
put in by man power. This type of logging was common as the trees
grew along the banks of the streams and all that was necessary was to fall
them and buck them in to proper lengths and roll them into the water.
This was done with crank screws which were geared jacks weighing 75 pounds.
To operate them a man was compelled to stand close to the log, which made
the work dangerous.
Team Logging
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Loggers Gibbs, Gloski, Soule, Jarvis, Retzer, and Williams pose with a compound-geared yarder. PCHS #2003.89.7 |
| Skid-Roads Built
Several people have asked me how a skid-road was built. I know how, but to describe it so others can understand is another thing. First they graded the road about ten or twelve feet wide, all with pick and shovel, then the skid-pieces of logs, usually hemlock, about eight or ten feet long and anywhere from six to twelve inches in diameter, were dug into the ground across the grade, spaced on seven and one-half foot centers, so that a sixteen foot log would always rest on two skids. Now we know an automobile road has to be what is called super-elevated on the outside of curves so the car will drive around the curve easily. However a skid-road had to be just the opposite, the elevation had to be on the inside of the curve, but not very much or the log would roll over. So on the curves, the skids were placed on an angle, so when the log came to the skid it would follow out a little at each one. If the curve was very sharp, they placed the skids closer together. A good skid-road man was hard to find since all the instruments he had was a good eye and lots of experience. Christopher Sowers was one of the best that I can call to mind at this time, and he has a good many descendants in the county and state yet. For a main road that was used for several years, the skids were much heavier and not less than twelve feet long so they lay solidly in place. Then they cut a notch in the center about thirty inches wide by sawing the sides on an angle, the wide side towards the woods. Then they cut a piece of maple, or some other hard wood about four or five inches thick to run on that, and a team could take several logs at a time. They got the grease from the butcher shops and from the aroma it was easy to tell when it was stored. Everyone worked ten hours a day and six days a week, thus making a sixty-hour week. The teamster put in about three hours extra taking care of the team, making seventy-eight hours for him. So we can see he did not have any trouble keeping his flesh down. The last bull team logging in the state was at Holcomb, Washington in the years 1903 and 1904 by Marshall, Stratton, and Morgan. We put in over two million feet of all clear fir and Spruce. The Siler Mill Co. bought the logs for $5.00 per thousand delivered at the mill. That was the last time any of us did any logging. Mr. Marshall, a fine old man, passed away in 1935 and is buried in Fern Hill Cemetery at Menlo. Mr. Morgan, another fine man, lives in Portland retired now at the age of 88. |
| S. A. Soule’s Logging Camp
From the special 1900 South Bend Journal
Perhaps the widest known logger
in the county and the only one who ships logs by rail is S. A. Soule of
Frances. A spur of track one and one quarter mile long extends from
the Northern Pacific track near Frances into the section of timber he is
logging. Recently he completed an extension of the track and has
built a substantial rollway. The Simpson Lumber Co. of South Bend
takes the entire output of the camp and never yet has this camp been run
[at] its full capacity. Nevertheless, in the period from November
3, 1899 to August 5, 1900, Mr. Soule cut and shipped to South Bend nine
million feet of logs and that from the poorest part of the section.
Most of this timber was fir. This work is all done with two large
donkey engines.Pacific County Edition. |
S. A. Soule oxen team at the Willapa River dump, circa 1895. PCHS #2003.89.4 |
| He was, by the way, the first
logger in Pacific County to purchase a donkey logging engine. It
was bought in 1893 and when it arrived, it was a nine-day wonder.
Many doubted the idea of an engine ever displacing horses and oxen and
predicted failure for the owner. It was a Dolbeer and had 15 horsepower.
In fact, it looks very diminutive alongside the larger engines he now uses;
nevertheless, the little engine was a success and lead to greater things.
The pioneer engine is still in existence and is still in use. It
has outlived all of the logging cattle in the county and demonstrated the
excellence of the owner's foresight and judgement.
When the camp is running full blast, 21 men are employed. Such a payroll makes the camp one of the mainstays of Frances. Mr. Soule pays the highest wages and demands and receives the best of work. As a manager and organizer he has marked ability and work in his camp moves along as smoothly and steadily as a clock. His ingenuity is also new in many labor-saving devices which have been copied in the camps. His personal outfit, exclusive of track, etc., could not be replaced for less than $8,000. Mr. Soule was born in Wisconsin in 1853. When he was three weeks old, his parents moved to Oregon. In 1861, he came to Pacific County. He has worked in logging camps in Oregon, Washington and California. In 1886 he started logging for himself and has been engaged in this business ever since except for one year when he ran a steamboat on the Columbia. He is the owner of 320 acres of land of which one-half has been cleared and is fertile, profitable farm and the other half contains valuable timber. |
S. A. Soule's oxen team, circa 1895, near Frances Washington. PCHS #2003.89.1. |
Soule's log dump on the Willapa River, circa 1895. PCHS #2003.89.3. 9 |
Lifting logs from the pond for tail loading on the Soule place near Frances, circa 1912. PCHS #2003.89.8. |
Clearing stumps with dynamite near Frances, Washington, circa 1910. Photo by Jos. Arnheim. PCHS #2003.89.11. |
S. A. Soule's oxen team stop and smile for the camera, circa 1895. PCHS #2003.89.2. (hear the actual sound an oxen makes to help smile while being photographed) 10 |
Editor's Note: This translation of the Kathlamet dialect also includes Boaz's effort to record the language's alphabet and pronunciation. We were unable to reproduce his complex marking and symbol system for preprinting the text in the Sou'wester. As a result, these pages were scanned directly from the originals as printed in the Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin and displayed here as slightly enlarged graphic images. 11 |
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| Oysterville again named County Seat
On page 8 of the Summer 2001, issue of The Sou‘wester, mention was made of a special election in 1860 ordered by the state legislature to allow Pacific county residents to express their choice as to the location of their county seat. While it was known that Oysterville was the victor, the researchers were unable at that time to locate an official report of the election. The official report on that special election, held on July 9, 1860, was recently found in State Archives in Olympia. Oysterville won the election with 79 votes over 67 favoring Bruceport. Oysterville had been chosen county seat by a vote of the people of Pacific county in an election in May 1855, at a time when Bruceport, on Shoalwater Bay, was the county seat of Chehalis (now Grays Harbor) county. The 1860 legislature drastically realigned the boundaries of the two counties and placed Shoalwater Bay in Pacific county, transferring the Chehalis county seat from Bruceport to the Scammons home in South Montesano. To insure that the people would have a voice in the location of the county seats after the realignment, the legislature passed a bill that called for a special election at which two or more places for consideration would be voted on. Oysterville and Bruceport were the two contenders in Pacific county. A separate but similar measure was passed for Chehalis county, with the special election called for July 9, the same day as in Pacific county and also calling for two or more sites to be considered. Ed VanSyckle, in his The River Pioneers reported that the Scammons place at South Montesano received 33 votes as against 28 for the Byles and Young place, which is now Cosmopolis. Bob Bailey |
Willapa Valley loggers pose with another load of beautiful Douglas Fir logs. Photo by Jos. Arnheim, courtesy of Adolph Huber. PCHS #2003.89.13 17 |