Part 2 of 2; reprinted from the June 1, 2006 Mendocino Beacon; Read Part 1
With the engine-driven Maru, rafts became much longer. A November 14, 1908 Beacon note: “A raft of logs nearly one-third of a mile long, one end invisible from the other, having 1,500 logs, which equaled 800,000 feet of lumber, was moved down the river by the ‘Maru.’ Perley Maxwell was the engineer.” The log rafts still went down to the millpond only with the tide. The Maru had enough power to keep the lines taut and to keep the raft in the river channel.
Maru No. 1 on Big River, c. 1908. (Photographer: Perley Maxwell; Gift of Alice Earl Wilder)
On April 23, 1917, a Beacon note read “The good ship ‘Maru’ was discovered trying to impersonate a submarine. Only her smokestack was visible. It took one day to raise her, get up steam and pull herself onto land, where she was drained of water.” That was an indication that the old scow was on its last legs.
The following year the second Maru, Big River #2, was completed, also designed by John Peterson, and also built at the mill. It was 51.5 feet long, 18 feet wide, drew 3.8 feet of water, weighed 17 tons, and had a larger 15 HP steam engine. The crew consisted of the captain, engineer, and three men. The second Maru could get to the boom from the mill on a slack tide in 28 minutes, with a record of 25 minutes.
By 1927, the boom up river (second boom) had been stopping logs for 68 years. The river upstream from the boom (the log storage area) had by then become cluttered with enough sunken logs and debris from the logs that it was necessary to construct a new, third boom nearly a mile further downstream, again consisting of three large, solid wooden piers to deflect and jam the logs.
In Big River was Dammed, W. Francis Jackson reminisces about the good old days: “On the Big River, men working presented another aspect to the lumbering engagement. They were doing their tasks from floating logs, rowing boats, operating sinker machine or dragsaw rafts and, yes, the Maru. At the mill or at the Boom some distance up river, men would be guiding logs to the next step of transformation from one form to another. Amidst the bank-to-bank work area along the river we would fish, principally with Mervyn Swanson and my brother, Kenneth. At other times Kenneth and Raymond Nicholson, Emery and William Escola would be companions at catching trout, perch, whiting and herring just to name a few. At times trolling for salmon was interrupted by having to get out of the river channel in order to let the Maru with a raft of logs go by.”
When the mill closed in 1938, all river activity ceased. If you canoe on the river today, you can still find some remains of the second Maru on the mud flats about a mile or so up from the old mill site, and up about two and one-half to three miles are still to be seen the piers that made the third boom.
The Kelley House Museum is open from 11AM to 3PM Thursday through Monday. Walking Tours of Mendocino are available throughout the week. Visit the Kelley House Event Calendar for a Walking Tour schedule.