Transcriber's note: Table of Contents added by Transcriber.
CONTENTS
I. The Lumberjacks and the Lumberjack Sky Pilot. 13
II. The Work at Barnum, Minnesota. 33
III. In the Heart of the Logging District. 51
IV. The Lumberjack in the Camps. 71
V. A View of the Camp Services. 95
VI. Itinerating in the Camps. 123
VII. Work in the Lumber Towns. 153
VIII. Muscular Christianity. 183
IX. The Field and Its Possibilities. 223
[Illustration: THE LUMBERJACK SKY PILOT AND HIS TEAM, FLASH AND SPARK]
THE
LUMBERJACK
SKY PILOT
BY
THOMAS D. WHITTLES
CHICAGO
THE WINONA PUBLISHING COMPANY
1908
COPYRIGHT,
1908
THE WINONA PUBLISHING COMPANY
FOREWORD
The intent of this little volume is not to glorify a man, but to
present the parish of the pines. Imagination has little part in its
pages, for the incidents are actual happenings and the descriptions are
taken from life. The condition of the foresters is really the theme,
although the title draws attention to the missionary. Because the Rev.
Frank E. Higgins has given himself devotedly to the men of forest and
river, I have chosen his experiences as hooks on which to hang the
pictures of pinery life. Mr. Higgins has labored with no thought of
fame, but with devotion to God and man; and so I write not to exalt the
missionary, but to introduce you to his interesting parishioners.
I have written with love because I know the Sky Pilot. I have written
with prayerful longing because I know the lumberjacks. If through
my unskilled effort you become interested in the isolated, wayward
woodsmen, I shall be fully repaid.
March, 1908. T. D. W.
"Men who plow the sea, spend they may--and free,
But nowhere is there prodigal among those careless Jacks
Who will toss the hard won spoil of a year of lusty toil
Like the Prodigals of Pickpole and the Ishmaels of the Ax."
--_Holman Day._
INTRODUCTION
BY THE
REV. JOHN E. BUSHNELL, D. D.
It has long been felt by those familiar with the human side of the
forest life that its call should be heard, and that the efforts of
devoted hearts to minister to the peculiar needs of the men behind
the axe and the saw should be made known. This volume is a timely
response to that desire. Through a veritable forest of material the
author safely arrives with us at the camp-fire and heart-fire of the
lumberjack. Most writers must create their own heroes; ours found his
awaiting him, for God created Frank E. Higgins, the hero of this book.
It is just like God to make such a man when there is such a work to be
done. It shows us how busy Providence is in human affairs. The least we
can do in return is to know that man and get his message.
The dumb creatures of the wood have just now almost a superfluity of
exponents and disciples. The humanity of the woods is just beginning
to have its champions.
The Lure of the Wild has long prevailed to call men forth to kill, or
prospect, or sin, but in a lovelier guise it will possess the readers
of this book to make them enter the Wild to pity, love, and save.
To most of them this narrative will come as a surprise. It may even
raise the question of possible exaggeration as to the extent of human
suffering and degradation involved in the simple task of felling the
forests to meet the needs of a growing nation. To those, however, who
have been over the trail, it will appeal as a moderate but faithful
picture of scenes of intensest pathos and tragedy which are but
commonplace in the parish of the Sky Pilot to the Lumberjacks.
The fierceness with which evil hunts its human prey, and makes strong
men of our own day and nation no better than the old galley-slave,
toiling to enrich their brutal masters, can be only partially set forth
in the limits of these pages. We shall all be made better neighbors
to our homeless brothers in the wilderness by following Mr. Whittles'
surprising and fascinating story and by walking in the footsteps of
the modest missionary of the Cross, of whom he writes, on his round
of mercy through camp and brush, for whose zeal the winter's blast is
never too severe, and whose love for souls melts a pathway through
drifted snow. We shall be reminded afresh of how rough is the work and
how great the human sacrifice by which the wants of civilization are
satisfied. We shall also be moved to resolve that the amount of the
vicarious suffering of men for this end shall be reduced of all that
portion of it that comes through our indifference and the activity of
evil. This narrative adds a unique and valuable chapter to the records
of our country. It will be read with gratitude by every one, who for
whatever cause seeks wider knowledge of his fellowmen. Most of all will
it appeal to the Christian hearts of our land to whom these men of the
woods will seem as brothers, having more than their share of life's
hardships and temptations and less than their share of its privilege
and its opportunity.
It is most earnestly to be hoped that it may reach all the homes
of our land and cause them to rest a while from the fiction of the
hour, that, in the glow of these human realities, stranger than
the inventions of fancy, we may learn henceforth to suffer in the
afflictions of our exceptional members and relieve the conditions which
make them helpless without our aid.
THIS
LITTLE BOOK
I LOVINGLY DEDICATE
TO SARAH.
MY WIFE.
CHAPTER I.
THE LUMBERJACKS AND THE LUMBERJACK SKY PILOT.
While I waited for a train, a woodsman entered the station. He was
dressed in a rough Mackinaw jacket; coarse socks held his trousers
close to his legs, and on his hands were heavy woolen mittens.
Everything proclaimed him to be a man of the camps.
"Hello, Jack," I said in greeting, "how were the woods this winter?
Anything new in the camps?"
Jack jammed the Peerless into his strong-smelling pipe, struck a match
and replied: "Snowed so blank hard that half the gang jumped the job,
and us fools that stayed worked up to our necks trying to get out the
stuff. This winter was Hades, but not quite so warm--no, not by a
jugfull. Why say, neighbor, in our camp the whisky froze up and kept
the bunch sober until we got a new supply."
He paused, looked me over, and began again:
"You're a preacher, ain't you?"
"I am," I replied.
"Well, then, here's news you'll enjoy. We're all thinking of joining
the church--us fellows in the camps. Funny, ain't it? The gospel
sharks are in the tall timber and are getting bags of game that would
shame a pot hunter. The cloth has donned overalls and is preaching at
us. Savvy, Preacher?--we've actually got so civilized that they're
preaching at us God-forsaken lumberjacks. How does that strike you for
news?"
He paused to see the effect this intelligence was having on me, then
continued:
"The sermons we get are the real thing. No sun-proof paint on them,
no 'by-your-leave,' but the straight goods, the pure stuff--chips,
bark and timber. Everything we get is government sealed, punk proof,
top-loaded and headed for the landing--which is us. It all comes our
way and we hold our noses and take the medicine. What party do you
happen to hitch to?"
"Denomination?" I asked, "I am a Presbyterian."
"Good! So am I. I don't happen to belong yet, but if they keep on
hewing to the line, I'll have to join--or hike. Our Sky Pilot, Frank
Higgins, belongs to your crowd. Probably you know him?"
"I have known him a long time," I replied.
"Shake! If you're a friend of his you'll do. He's onto his job, and if
this keeps up, the guy that splashes ink on the church roll will be
kept busy adding our names. There's my train."
He was gone. May the day soon come when the half jesting prophecy of
the lumberjack will be fulfilled.
* * * * *
Stately and green is the forest of the North Star State. From Lake
Superior the great pineries of Minnesota extend unbroken until the
fertile silt of the Red River Valley limits the growth of the pines.
Two hundred miles is the width of the forest and the evergreen covers
the northern half of the state. This is "the woods" of Minnesota--the
center of the logging industry.
About five hundred camps mar this beautiful region with their rude
shacks and temporary shelters, some of them being scores of miles from
the permanent settlements. During the winter months twenty thousand
men labor in the scattered camps of this vast territory, removing
the growth of ages that the farms and cities may have comfort and
protection. The primeval forest has been invaded, and on the zero air
of the north the ring of the ax, the tearing of saws and the strange
oaths of the teamsters mingle with the crash of falling trees.
The workers of the forest are called lumberjacks. In all the country
there is scarcely a more interesting group of men--interesting
because so wayward and prodigal in life and habit, while their forest
home appeals to every leaf-loving soul. They are the nomads of the
west--farm hands and railroad constructionists in summer, woodsmen in
winter--with no settled abode, no place they call home. A few years
ago Michigan claimed them; later their habitat was in the forests of
Wisconsin; now the woods of Minnesota is their rendezvous.
[Illustration: LUMBER CAMP IN THE LONG, LACE-LIKE NORWAYS]
The typical lumberjack is a man of large heart and little will. He sins
with willing freedom, because he has almost lost the power to check
his evil desires, and it is so easy to yield to the vultures who make
sin convenient and righteousness hard. The saloon and brothel are ever
alluringly near, while the church and bethel are slow to approach. The
harpies of sin wait at every turn to prey upon the woodsman--though
they damn his soul it matters not, if they obtain the cash.
The railroads push their iron arms into the heart of the wooded lands,
and the villages follow the railways, desiring to be near the camps
for the trade they bring. Almost without exception the first places
of business are the saloons, to which are attached the outfits of
the gamblers, and conveniently near are the places of shame. One new
town in the pineries had between forty and fifty saloons (forty-six
I believe is the number), five large brothels, and the gambling
hells were many, yet the population of the place was little over two
thousand. It was evident to the casual visitor that its chief industry
was to separate the campmen from their earnings by preying on their
weaknesses. Another village is beautifully situated at the junction of
two rivers. All around it is well timbered land, and from the nature
of the soil the place is destined to be of importance in the coming
years, but at the time of this writing the village with its adjacent
territory only contains a population of about two hundred. The village
has less than a dozen houses, but six saloons do a thriving business
and the brothel has appeared. You ask where the places obtain their
patronage? From the camps. The foresters are the source of profit;
the population of the town would not be able to keep one saloon in
business. Nor are these solitary instances. The same conditions are to
be found in almost every hamlet and village in the woods. Day and night
they ply their sinful trade, and soon the gold, which the lumberjack
risked his life to win, jingles in the coffers of the shameless or
gleams in the till of the saloon or gambling hell.
Sunday is the harvest day of iniquity. The men are released from labor
and pour into the villages to spend the hours of rest. The wheel,
whisky and women separate them from their earnings, and like the
withered leaves of autumn the strong wielders of the ax and canthook
fall easy victims. One night "to blow in the stake," regrets for a
moment--then back to the loneliness of the winter woods again. He is
said to be a poor lumberjack who can keep his wages over night.
Jack is not always a willing victim. Often by knockout drops he is
reduced to insensibility and robbed. He may complain of the treatment,
but he is helpless through lack of evidence, and is told to "go up
river," or is hustled unfeelingly out of town. "He's only a lumberjack
and is better off when all in." This is all the sympathy the Ishmaelite
receives. No place is open to him except the one he should avoid. The
churches are too weak to meet the large demands, and so no place of
refuge opens its doors of hope to the prodigal. The balm of sympathy
comes to him limitedly; humanity is as cold as the frozen streams
of his winter's retreat. Civilization is viewed only as a place of
unbridled license where the law favors the spoiler. God is dead. Christ
is only a word of convenient profanity. The church has forgotten the
prodigal while caring for the souls of the saved. Thus he views life.
In his wretchedness he labors for the keepers of the gates of death
and is satisfied, if, by the sweat of his brow, he can win an hour of
forgetfulness in the place of riot and shame.
No picture was ever painted so dark as to exclude all light. God made
it so. Even in the neglected sons of the lumber-camps is seen a hopeful
ray--for their hearts are as rich in charity as their lives are dark
with sin. Their sympathies can easily be touched. It is through the
open freedom of their generous nature that the reforming power of the
gospel can enter. The only remedy for the campmen is the sustaining
power of the Man of Nazareth. When they shall learn to know the Christ
of God as the Savior of men, the darkened lives of the foresters will
be transformed, and the fruits they shall bring forth will be the
wished for deeds of righteousness.
When the Rev. Francis Edmund Higgins, the Lumberjack Sky Pilot, began
his work among these neglected Ishmaelites, no religious society was
making an effort to raise the moral and spiritual condition of the
campmen. The Catholic church, then as now, devoted itself to the
hospital work in the nearby towns, but no denomination invaded the
camps to lead the bunkmen to right living. At the time of this writing
the Presbyterian church is the only religious organization having
special missionaries in the lumbercamps.
Regardless of denominational prejudice, the work of Frank Higgins
appeals to the whole Christian church, not only on account of its
peculiar type, but also because of the interesting man conducting it.
Fitted by nature and training for his work, he is striving with heart
and hand in a large and lonely field. He is the pastor of a large and
scattered flock which for long and weary years has known no shepherd.
Depraved men are being reached, lifted and kept for God through
him--men alone are his parishioners.
Seldom is a pastor more beloved by his people. The rough but kindly
hearts of the lumberjacks go out to this fearless minister who
self-sacrificingly breaks the bread of life to the husk-fed prodigals
of the far north country. The lumberjacks will fight for their Sky
Pilot; and even the ranks of the enemy--the saloonmen, the gamblers,
the brothel keepers--are compelled to admire this earnest Christian
minister who is valiantly fighting a hard battle for God and
righteousness.
The Rev. Frank Higgins is a resolute character, full of zeal and
undaunted courage. God gave him a strong body and he is using it for
the Giver. That rare virtue we call tact, or sanctified common sense,
shows itself in all his dealings with men. False dignity is absent from
him, but the dignity of sterling purpose and determined endeavor is
ever present. He is no slave to custom, but is a man who does things in
his own way, and does them well. The title the loggers have conferred
upon him is one of affection; he is the Lumberjack Sky Pilot, and if
you heard his forest parishioners speak that name, you would realize
that his ordination was threefold--ordained of God, by the presbytery
and by the lumberjacks.
Frank E. Higgins was born in the Queen City of the West, Toronto,
Ontario, on the nineteenth day of August, 1865. He was the seventh
child to come into the home, but the only one to survive the
vicissitudes of infancy. His parents were both Irish, but his father,
Samuel Higgins, was born in the Dominion, and for some years prior to
his death kept a hotel in Toronto on the site where the Walker House
now stands. In this house Frank was born. Ann Higgins, the mother,
first saw the sun in the Ulster settlement of Ireland, her parents
bringing her to Canada when she was four years old. Samuel Higgins died
when Frank was seven years of age.
Two years after the death of Frank's father, Ann Higgins married John
Castle, an Englishman, who shortly afterwards moved the family to
Shelburne, Dufferin County, Ontario. Here in the untouched wilderness
the settlers began to force an opening for cabin and crops. The country
was new. Few white families were near, but on the Higgins homestead
were several camps of Sioux Indians. The land was forest covered, the
towering cedar and hemlock stretched their graceful fingers heavenward,
the spreading maples delighted the eye, and the white robes of the
slender birch lent variety to the sylvan scene. With painful effort the
sentinels were felled and squared for cabin and sheds, and fields of
grain succeeded the fallen forest.
The companions of Frank Higgins were the children of the Sioux Indians,
whose tepees were near the homestead. With the children of the Indians
he took his lessons in woodcraft, learned to draw the bow, or
childishly labored at the tasks of the growing braves. One of his early
recollections is of secretly carrying a loaf of bread from his home to
trade with an Indian youth for bow and arrows. Perhaps the subsequent
strapping he received had something to do with the permanency and
vividness of the recollection. For three years the Indians were his
constant playmates. From the warlike Sioux, fearlessness was imbibed,
their love of the forest became his, and an ineffaceable delight in
tree and stream was stamped in the character of the growing boy. "I
feel it now," he said to me, but recently when we were in the city
together, "I want to get back to the solitudes where the trees have
voices and every stream a story. I love the camps rather than the
cities. I have never passed from my boyhood love--my first love--the
trees, the hills, the brooks. In the pineries I feel as if I were a boy
back in the old days again."
[Illustration: STEAM-JAMMER AT WORK]
These were days of gold and purple when the child was learning the
mysteries of life, days of ceaseless roaming in which nature taught her
truths through leaf and twig, through dew and whispering breeze. He
was nature taught--all that touches "the wild and pillared shades"
belongs to his free, frank nature. Unknowingly he was beholding the
beauty of his future kingdom and unconsciously equipping himself for
the years of zealous toil among the white nomads whose weapons are the
ax, the saw and the peavey--a change in equipment and complexion, with
the same stage setting.
Few school privileges came to the forest lad. When he should have been
at his studies there was no school to attend; when the school came,
only brief periods were allowed to him. At twelve he took his place by
his stepfather's side and assisted in supporting the family. Every hand
was needed, and the boy's little counted for much. There was ground to
clear of trees and underbrush, there were rails to split and fields to
fence, and in the winter logging, claimed his labor for the cash it
gave in return.
Dufferin County could offer few advantages in those days. Its sparsely
settled condition meant absence of amusements and communal privileges.
Most of the new settlers were of English blood, and while they were
willing to stint and sacrifice, yet they demanded the presence of the
church. A church was organized near the Castle home, to which John and
Ann Castle gave their united support. Frank's stepfather was a godly
man, in whose life was reflected the spirit of our Master's teaching.
Service and fellowship were the watchwords of the home. Of material
wealth the cabin could not boast, but in spiritual gifts its occupants
were far from poor. It was largely through these examples of Christian
living that Frank Higgins acquired a knowledge and interest in the
things of God.
When Frank was eighteen years old a wave of religious awakening swept
through the community, and the stepson of John Castle was one of the
first to surrender to the Master. Immediately he interested himself
in the welfare of his companions, doing personal work among them. The
result was that most of his companions joined the company of believers.
These young men then organized a semi-weekly prayer meeting in the
schoolhouse and Frank Higgins led the first meeting. Nine of those who
attended those prayer meetings have since gone forth to preach the
everlasting Gospel. There must have been good stuff among the settlers
of Dufferin County.
The ministry always had its charms for Frank Higgins. Long before
he united with the church, the desire to preach had possessed him.
Many were the sermons he delivered to the cattle, stumps and trees,
while going the rounds of his daily labor. On one occasion the
stepfather and hired man hid behind the stumps that they might receive
edification from the discourses that so often wasted their sweetness
on the desert air. Unaware of their presence, Frank worked a while,
then, laying aside his ax, mounted a log and began his sermon to the
stumps. Vigorously he chided them for their inactivity. Emphatic were
the woes he pronounced upon them who were at ease, while the harvest
called loudly for workers. Enthusiastically he bade the stumps march
forward and with unsheathed sword take possession of the Promised
Land. The hidden ones, suppressing mirth that almost injured them,
silently thrust their heads above the hiding place and looked with
forced solemnity at the big, lonely preacher. So unexpected was their
appearance, that he, who a moment before was willing to lead an army
of stumps to victory, retreated to the cover of the forest, pursued
by the convulsing laughter of his friends. Years afterwards, when
commenting on the above incident, he said: "You see, it was a sermon
to men after all. I had intended it for stumps, but it produced action
among men." He laughed.
Men have always been his auditors. From the time of his stump sermon
they have listened to his story of the Cross, and today among the
stumps of the pineries he preaches with results that cause the angels
to laugh in gladness.
At the age of twenty Frank Higgins returned to Toronto, the city of his
birth, where he resided with relatives. He there entered the public
schools, taking up the studies which the conditions in Dufferin County
prevented him from acquiring in boyhood. It took courage to enter
the sixth grade of the city schools, a big brawny man among babes.
Unaccustomed to cities and civilization, he felt ill at ease away from
his native woods. His hands were better acquainted with the ax than
with the pen and pencil, but he stuck to his task while the blush of
shame mounted his cheek as he sat among the little children of the
grade. His teachers did not find him an apt scholar, but they bowed
before the originality of his untutored mind.
Three years were spent in the grades and two in the high school, after
which he left the Dominion of Canada and came to Minnesota, at the age
of twenty-five.
In the fall of 1890 he began lay preaching in the Methodist
Episcopal church at Annandale, Minnesota, and for two years labored
in that field; doing very successful work. He was fortunate in the
companionship of Dr. A. M. Ridgeway, a young physician who had recently
begun to practice in the village. This friend did all he could to cover
the defects of the frontiersman and to aid him to self-improvement.
It was largely through Dr. Ridgeway's persuasion that Higgins gave up
his work at Annandale and went to Hamline University to continue his
studies. For two years he applied himself to books, but owing to the
scarcity of funds he was compelled to preach on the Sabbaths, and the
small salary thus obtained helped to support him in the University.
The name of the late Rev. L. M. Merritt, of Onesta M. E. Church,
Duluth, Minnesota, is held by him in revered memory for the timely
encouragement and assistance rendered him at this period.
In 1895 the way opened for him to enter the service of his mother
church. The Presbyterian Church at Barnum, Minnesota, was offered to
him and the layman found himself in the denomination of his youth. The
work at Barnum, Minnesota, changed the whole course of his life.
[Illustration: RIVER CREW ON LAKE BEMIDJI]