“The ride down compensated for the long trudge back”
The use of the Greenbrier River to transport logs before the coming of the rail transportation to the Upper Greenbrier Valley is a well-known part of the history of the region. The history of the log drives on the Greenbrier will be given in the following chapters.
Almost forgotten is the history of the rafting of lumber to Ronceverte. As already related, after the Civil War the building of the C&O Railroad through Greenbrier County made possible the movement to national markets of lumber produced in the Greenbrier Valley. At the same time, the introduction of steam powered sawmills allowed lumber production to exceed local needs and sawmill operators could look to selling their production to a wider market. The C&O provided the needed transportation but the problem of how to get the lumber to the railroad remained. The primitive roads of the period restricted the distance lumber could be hauled economically by wagon. As for logs, the answer was found by using the Greenbrier River as the method of transportation.
An article published in The Pocahontas Times in 1936 gives a good review of history of lumber rafting on the Greenbrier River. The article was written by the editor of the Times, Calvin W. Price.
Someone was asking me how about that romantic, lost industry on the Greenbrier – the running of great lumber rafts. This industry flourished during the eighties and nineties of the last century, and was ended by the building of the Greenbrier Division of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad.
1 PT, 4/2/1936
Walnut, cherry, cucumber and ash were the principal woods rafted. Pine was too cheap and oak too heavy to float up well. There never was much poplar up here. Marlinton was about the head of navigation, but some rafts did come from as high up as Cloverlick. Ronceverte was the destination.
A raft of sawed lumber ranged in length from a hundred to one hundred and twenty feet, and was either sixteen or eighteen feet broad. It was built to draw about eighteen inches of water. When that depth was reached, they quit loading, whether there was much or little lumber. The weight of the lumber had to do with the size of the raft. I would say an average raft ranged between twenty and twenty-five thousand feet. Occasionally there would be a raft of walnut logs, to be sawed up at Ronceverte. Occasionally, too, there would be double rafts – two big ones spliced together. The object of doubling up was to save the cost of an extra pilot. A crew was a pilot and his helper on the rear oar, and three men on the bow oar.
The real rafting business was started by Captain [James C.] Lakin, who came here from Pennsylvania in the middle eighties, and he brought with him the late Captain John Peters.* The latter was a practical raft builder and river pilot. He had rafted on the Susquehanna [River] up in Pennsylvania. He learned the Greenbrier River, and started a school of raft runners. Among the pilots I recall George McCollam, John Buckley, John Rorke, Charles and John Callison. Of these, Messrs. McCollam and Buckley are still with us, hale and hearty and able yet to carry a raft to [the] snubbing place at Ronceverte. A four foot rise at Marlinton was considered [a] good rafting tide. On such a rise the raft traveled at a rate of about five miles an hour. The elapsed time from Marlinton to Ronceverte – 65 miles by river was put down as 13 hours. On higher water the trip has been made in 11 hours.
There was art in the construction of a raft. First came the “cribs” – five or six to each raft. The crib consisted of four sixteen or eighteen foot two by fours, pinned at the corners with a “grub.” A grub was a sapling – usually white oak – shaved to a diameter of an inch and a half, a yard long, with the root burl trimmed into a knot about three inches across. The two by fours were bored with a big auger, the grubs inserted and wedged in tight. The bottom of the crib consisted of inch boards, laid crosswise the stream. The crib was built on the ground, and slid into the water. Five or six cribs or bottoms were laid down and fastened together with bored two by fours two feet long. These connecting pieces were hung on the grubs at each end of the bottoms and securely wedged. Then came the work of laying on the lumber, lengthwise the stream. When a draft of eighteen inches was reached the raft was done. If I remember right, when the last layer of lumber went on, it was all bound together by more bored two by fours stretched across the raft from the grubs at each corner of the bottoms. The grubs were then lopped off and securely wedged.
The head blocks on which the big oar sweeps rested were built up of more two by fours, holding a strong hardwood pivot on which worked the oar. The oar stem was a thirty foot length of tree of about eight inches in diameter at the big end. A seasoned stick of poplar, bass wood or cucumber made the best stem. The big end of the stem was mortised back five feet or so and a sixteen foot two by twelve board inserted at a proper angle for an oar blade. This great oar took a powerful purchase in the water, but no more than was needed at times. The rear oar was a handy thing to knock a green horn into an icy bath, should it get beyond control by the water catching it broadside. Such catastrophe was ever guarded against by the pilot always “carrying the oar.”
Laying down and building up a raft was a hurry up job at which the men worked at full speed. They could rest floating down the river the next day, working feverishly only on occasions at bad places. A rising river kept the raft in midstream as it would climb the highest part; a falling tide had tendency to bring the raft to shore.
Marlin Ford at the Island** above town was one of the shallow places to be considered in rafting. Often a raft built at the mouth of Stony Creek would be dropped down in the evening to the island, to the bridge or to the Price Hole, if the river was falling, for an early start the next day. With a thirteen hour run in prospect, an early start was always desirable. The pilots got to starting before daylight, and then occasionally would run at night.
At Marlinton was the Riding Rock*** – a big sandstone boulder, which is still in the river opposite the residence of R. B. Slaven. The bank is now rapidly covering up this rock. When the water lapped over the top of the Riding rock it was a proper rafting tide. Then there were the Duncan Rocks, a dangerous piece of rough water above the mouth of Swago. Other places to remember were Break Neck near Beard, Copperhead Rock near Spice Run, Davy’s Run, at Droop, Scrub Grass, Sliding Bend and a dozen others, the names of which do not come to me now. I must not forget Bird’s Mill Dam, near Rorer, where a raft was more than likely to hang if the water was not right. Favorite places to build rafts were the Gay Eddy, at the mouth of Stony Creek; the Slough, at the head of the Island above Marlinton Bridge; just above the bridge near the residence of George W. McCollam, and some at the Price Hole**** near the Hunter residence, when the ways were crowded at more convenient places. Then there was Swago, Stamping Creek, and Beard.
How many rafts were run on Greenbrier River in the sixteen or eighteen years the industry flourished, there is no way of telling. Mr. McCollam probably made as many as a hundred trips in that time; he does know in his record year he kept account and that he piloted no less than thirteen safely through.
There were a lot of things which could happen to a big raft, 120 feet long, 18 feet wide, 18 inch draft and a dead weight of perhaps 80 tons. It could drag in shallows, hang on a tow head, bust on a rock, turn side ways and break in two.
I have always heard John Buckley has the unusual record of never wrecking a raft. It was said he would refuse to accept the responsibility of piloting any man’s raft which he did not consider properly constructed, of if the river was too high or too low, if he did not have the picking of his crew, or any other condition which he considered the risk unjustifiable.
On the other hand, Mr. McCollam had the reputation of running any man’s raft any time he had a mind for it to go. With him, the owner took the risk with his property, and he would risk his skill and luck with the old river for a happy snubbing of lumber, crew and pilot at Ronceverte. While he had some wrecks, all the odds had to be against him if he did not safely land his raft at its destination.
There always was the urge to get a raft out and going on a rising river; there was always the chance to hurry back and get another one on the falling tide.
Aside from the standing it gave a man among his fellows, the matter of piloting a great raft of lumber had a big money consideration as well. A pilot received five dollars for a run that took him but a day to make. Of course, there was that forty-six mile walk, but time had to be put in somewhere.
Some there were who insisted on walking back home in one day. Mr. McCollam’s plan was to break the journey. If the water was high and he got an early start and hung his raft in mid afternoon, he walked back fifteen miles to Frankford and home next day. If he started from Ronceverte in the morning,the thirty miles to Shisler’s on Droop Mountain was good enough for a day’s journey on foot. At times, the demand for his services as pilot on a tide that was holding well, justified the hiring of a livery team to trot back home at night to bring down a raft the next day.
Some pilots were a bit soft and fancy, so they got to loading the family horse and buggy on the raft, to drive back in ease and comfort, pomp and circumstance the next day.
It was [a] considerable accomplishment to be able to safely pilot a raft 120 feet long, eighteen feet wide and drawing 18 inches of water down the swift Greenbrier the sixty-five water miles between Marlinton and Ronceverte. The pilot must not only know where he was every minute of the time, every rock, rapid, shoal and current, but to know and anticipate the shifting and changes to be expected at every place at any stage of water. Hair trigger decisions had to made on the second or just before. If the move was the wrong one or too late it was just too bad, but no worse than no move at all would have been. It was a great game and a great life while it lasted. The ride down compensated for the long trudge back.1
Price, p 128, there is a reference to the “Lumber Yard” on the west side of the river in giving location of the home of Robert Gay, “traces of which are yet visible at the Lumber Yard.”
*Price was mistaken on the date Lakin and Peters came to this area. Lakin, a native of Deposit, New York, came to Ronceverte in 1880 and moved to Dunmore in 1882, where he, Peters, and S. C. Pritchard had a sawmill, as related in the previous chapter. He returned to New York state in 1898 and died in his home town on November 29, 1908, at age 71. Captain was his rank in the Civil War. Peters was also originally from Deposit. In addition to his work rafting lumber, he was a logging contractor for the St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing Company. Peters remained in the Greenbrier Valley for the remainder of his life and died on – – – -. Captain was – – – – – -2
** The island at Marlinton referred to in the article no longer exists. Going north from the Marlinton bridge, the island was in the river just before where the land widens out and the river goes away from the road.
*** The “Riding Rock” would have been on the west side of the river, opposite the end of Eleventh Street,
**** The “Price Hole” is not far above the mouth of Knapps Creek, near the county historical museum, which is located in the Hunter home.
Other rafting pilots not mentioned in the article whose names have been located were William H. Overholt, William Gum, Levi Gay, and John Hill.
The rafts contained from 30,000 to 60,000 board feet with a crew of five to eight men.3
In an interview in 1905, Peters said he ran 157 rafts, containing an estimated 4,000,000 feet of lumber total. He claimed to have never lost a stick of timber. Peters’ largest raft was 150 feet by 32 feet and contained 57,000 feet of ash and cherry. He said he made the trip with this raft in about twelve hours.4
In a newspaper article relating his experiences as a raft pilot, John Buckley wrote that he once took three rafts down the river in a five day period. On Monday, he walked from his home at Buckeye to Gay’s Eddy, above Marlinton, and took a raft to Ronceverte. On Tuesday he walked home. On Wednesday he piloted a raft down the river from the Island at Marlinton, walking home on Thursday. On Friday, he took a raft from Swago down the river. For his efforts he earned $30.5
In February 1891 there was a report on Charles Callison taking five rafts to Ronceverte in a week.6
Based on existing evidence, it was sawmill operators in Pocahontas County who made use of the river to move lumber. No reference has been found to rafts originating in Greenbrier County. Perhaps any mill in that county was close enough to the railroad to use the roads. When the first lumber raft went down the river is not known. As related in Chapter III, a steam sawmill was set up near Mace in 1873 by Dan, John, and Jake Garber and their production of cherry lumber was hauled to the Greenbrier River for rafting to Ronceverte.7
A Greenbrier Independent correspondent from Hillsboro took a ride with W. H. Overholt and C. W. Callison as they piloted two rafts of cherry and oak lumber to Ronceverte in July or August 1889. He wrote, “As we were all novices, we felt a little nervousness as our frail craft was rocking and tossing to and fro over the rough and treacherous waters of Davy’s Run, Copperhead Rocks, Glen Rocks, Tumbling Rocks and Breakneck. But notwithstanding the fact that danger lurks in many places, a raft is seldom ever wrecked as the men who pilot know every crook and turn of the river, and by skillful manipulation of the oars generally pass safely over the dangerous places. It is well worth a ‘run’ down the Greenbrier to view the grand natural scenery.”8
Callison’s “skillful manipulation of the oars” came into good use in late September of the same year, when he and Overholt took two large rafts down the river. There were predictions they would not make it over the rough water at the “Droop,” but Callison got them safely through.9
A raft of yew pine is reported to have come from the Forks of Greenbrier (Durbin) to Ronceverte in March 1890 in eighteen hours and twenty minutes. The time was described as “extraordinary.”10
In late October 1890 it was reported that six large rafts had left Marlinton “under the supervision of Commodore Peters and Captains Gay, Lakin, Callison and McCollum and about thirty others.” The rafts totaled nearly a quarter million feet of lumber.11
In the rafting business, things did not always go as planned, as this report in The Pocahontas Times in January 1891 indicated. “Three of the six rafts that started to Ronceverte on the last rise in the Greenbrier river had bad luck; one hung on the Bird Mill dam, and two of them lashed together and running after night, were completely wrecked and torn to pieces on the McClure rocks. There were nine men on them and all escaped safely to land. LESSON, run rafts in daylight and sleep at night – and rest on Sunday.”12
A Times writer went with Peters in February 1893. “Many thanks for the invitation extended by him to us to make the trip and come back in the carriage that the Captain always ships when he goes. Must be a novel sensation for a horse to go to Ronceverte so easily.”13
There were two reports on C. W. Callison taking lumber down the river the the winter of 1893. In February it was reported that he “took a big lot of lumber to Ronceverte last week in two large rafts, under the pilotage of Capt. John Roake,” and he “gave all the Marlinton boys a ride for a couple of miles.”14
The following month there was the report “Capt. Charles Callison took the largest raft last week that was ever run on the Greenbrier. Sidney Payne accompanied him.”15
Also in October, the Times correspondent from Dunmore reported, “Capt. John Peters and Capt. J. C. Lakin are off to Ronceverte with rafts. John Peters took two this time which make 100 rafts that Johnnie has run since he came to this state, on the Greenbrier.”16
For about eighteen months, from mid-1893 to December 1894, the river was too low for rafting. With the first first suitable tide in December, four rafts left for Ronceverte, only to be stopped by a man-made obstacle. In the summer of 1894 the St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing Company constructed a splash dam in the river below Renick in an effort to provide water to get at least some logs to its mill at Ronceverte. The lack of water in the river had left the main log drive for the year stranded at Marlinton. The dam had a chute in the middle which was supposed to allow rafts to pass through. However, the first raft to go over the dam tilted up until one end drove into the bottom of the river. “In a moment the planks formed a pile of debris. The raft was composed of walnut lumber and the loss is considerable.” Two of the other rafts were stopped before going over the dam and the fourth had not gotten that far down the river. It was the consensus of the raftsmen that to allow the rafts to go over the dam, an “apron” would have to be built in front of the chute to reduce the angle at which the rafts would travel. Modification work on the dam was underway in January.17
Four rafts left from the Hillsboro area on February 14, 1896. Three were made up of railroad ties cut by W. H. Overholt and the fourth contained planks cut by John Hill. The splash dam was still a problem, however, as related in the news item on these rafts:
Those, who follow rafting on the Greenbrier river do not find it a very safe or easy business. In going around the “Droop” one encounters anything but smooth sailing, and a skillful manipulation of the oars is required to pass in safety such places as “Copperhead Rocks” Davy’s Run, Sliding Bend, Tumbling Rock, &c. The place most dreaded by raftsmen now is the splash dam, near Falling Spring, but few rafts have passed over it without being wrecked, more or less, and the men managing them deluged with water, and almost swept off. While some who pilot rafts, greatly dread it, there are others who do not mind it much and seem to so thoroughly enjoy the trip down with the river, with its excitement and scenic attractions.18
Although the log drives continued for a few years after the Greenbrier Division of the C&O was constructed into Pocahontas County in 1899-1900, made up of timber cut in the Knapps Creek watershed, the access to a much easier form of transportation brought a quick end to the floating of lumber rafts to Ronceverte. Peters was reported to have piloted the last raft on the Greenbrier River, in June 1902.19
As related above, the men who handled the movement of logs and lumber on the Greenbrier River had to have an intimate knowledge of the river and its characteristics at various levels of water. Not unexpectedly, names were given to the various features encountered along the way. The following list of names was printed in the Times in 1897, going downstream. The location of the first place on the list, Peter’s Landing, has not been determined.
Peter’s Landing
Cunningham Rapids
The Whirlpool
Hevener’s Landing
Cassell Island
Lakin Island*
Leatherbark [Cass]
Al Galford’s Ford
Deer Creek Islands
Ray’s Eddy
Stony Bottom
MacCalpin’s Islands
Beaver Pond
Clover Creek [Clover Lick]
Malcomb Eddy
Johnson Eddy
Bridger Place
Hooper Eddy
Friel’s Crossing
Thorny Creek
Crooked Bend Milldam**
Sherard Rock**
Gay’s Landing [at the Fair Grounds]
Marlin Ford [Marlinton]
Josh Kee Towhead
Duncan Rocks
Buckley Ford [near the mouth of Swago Creek]
Beaver Creek Islands
Cathole [just below the railroad bridge at Watoga]
Smith’s Dam [dam for a grist mill, near Steven Hole Run]
Stamping Creek Towhead
Sister Rocks
Denning Landing [perhaps at the mouth of Laurel Run]
Break-neck
Side-Suck Bend
Copperhead Rock
Perkin’s Towhead
Spice Run Bend
[Pocahontas-Greenbrier County line]
Davy Run Rapids
Glen Rocks***
Black Pond Island
McClure Rocks
Pine Island
Bird’s Dam [dam for a grist mill, near Horrock]
Gamer’s Fields
Falling Spring Bridge [Renick]
Jimisons
Bush Islands
Horseshoe Bend
Miller’s Eddy
Tumbling Rocks [Woodman]
Three Island Ford
Free Bridge [Anthony]
Callison Islands
Slippery Ford
Dry Prong
Keister’s Landing [there was a mill dam in the river at this location]
Blankenship’s
Huff Dam
Side-Suck-on-the-Right
Sliding Bend
Bore’s Landing
Suck Lick Islands
Hickory Top
Chestnut Island
Caldwell Pond
Stone-house Islands
Cat Rocks
Caldwell Bridge [now US Rt. 60 bridge]
Splash Dam [1901 C&O r/w map shows a dam below mouth of Howard Creek]
Iron Bridge [C&O Railway]
Head of Piers
Ronceverte20
*This name is supposed to come from James Lakin having to spend the night on the island due to a mishap. In December 1892 there was a news report on he and his crew spending the night on an island after a raft of ash, cut by Sam Cooper at Green Bank, “had a mash up.”21
** These probably refers to a grist mill and mill dam owned by Adam Sharatt located three miles above Marlinton.22
*** “Glen Rocks, a piece of rough water on the Greenbrier River near the Pocahontas and Greenbrier line, well known to raftsmen, was named after one John Glenn who lost his life there in 1825 while rafting perhaps the first timber ever transported from this county. He was furnishing hewn timber for the construction of the bridge at Caldwell which was burnt 35 years later by the soldiers. His grave is at the old burying ground at Renick.” (However, it seems the timbers could have come from a location closer to the bridge site.)23
A 1902 article in the Times on taking a canoe ride down the river listed four rapids at Droop Mountain: Davy Run, Sliding Water, Glen Rocks, and one not given a name. It is noted in the article that “tradition relates that a man by the name of Davy was drowned here sixty years ago, in attempting to run the place on a small raft.”24
1PT, 4/2/1936, Calvin Price was the author’s grandfather
2 PT, 1/21/1909 (from WVN); The Virginias, July 1885; Cole, History of Greenbrier County, p 234
3 MJ, 10/6/1944
4 WVN, 9/16/1905
5 PT, 6/8/1944
6 PT, 2/12/1891
7 Forestry and Wood Industries, p 244
8 GI, 8/8/1889
9 GI, 10/3/1889
10 GI, 3/20/1890
11 PT, 10/30/1890
12 PT, 1/22/189113 PT, 2/16/189314 Pt, 2/9/1893. 2/16/1893
15 PT, 3/9/1893
16 PT, 3/16/1893
17 PT, 12/21/1894, 12/28/1894,1/4/1895; dam was located about 1400 feet north of Milepost 23 on the railroad, a splash dam was constructed to hold water above the log drive, with water released as needed.
18 GI, 2/27/1896
19 Cole, History of Greenbrier County, p 234
20 Andrew Price, “The Weekly Letter,” PT, 4/9/1897
21 PT, 12/22/1892
22 Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County, p 401
23 PT, 10/8/1903
24 “Canoeing on the Greenbrier,” PT, 7/2/1902
Logging The Greenbrier Valley 