Reprinted from the January 21, 1993 Mendocino Beacon
For our mill here on Big River, the first large redwoods were cut down entirely with double-bitted axes, and cut into logs with axes. In those very early logging days it might have taken two experienced men a week to bring down a big tree, including a few days to prepare a bed or cushion of smaller trees for it to fall upon so as not to shatter upon impact. A sizable amount of wood from each tree was lost to the axes, so it did not take long before sawyers had saws long enough to be used on the big trees.
Skid road in the Glen Blair area
From the 1850s to the 1880s, logging remained an un-mechanized business, but it did become very specialized. Those that brought the trees down were the “fallers” or “choppers.” With axes they made a large wedge-shaped cut (called the undercut) into the side where the tree was to fall, then chopped out a ring through the bark on the opposite side just above the bottom level of the undercut. With saws they then cut into the ring, using wedges to take the pressure off the saws and to finally topple the tree when the cut was deep enough.
After the choppers had brought the tree down, the “ringers” would chop away the thick bark at log-length intervals along the trunk. Then the “peelers” stripped off all the bark because the mill saws did cut well through the thick fibrous bark. Lastly, the “buckers” would saw the bare tree into logs, in even-foot lengths usually from 12 to 20 feet long.
Providing the means of moving the logs from the woods to the mill was the job of the “swampers.” Most of the early cutting was done very close to the streams or creeks, because the only way to get the logs out was via the available watercourses; the logs would be rolled down to the creek bed, often with the help of jackscrews (essential logging tools with which woodsmen gained the leverage to manipulate large logs), and remain there until the rains generated enough flow to bring them downstream. To assist that process, temporary dams were often created; when enough water built the dams were dynamited and the flood brought all the logs downstream.
As the logging operations moved farther inland and away from the creeks, the swampers built roads on which horses and oxen were used to drag the logs to the creek beds. To facilitate the dragging, skid roads were created. Lined with small logs around a foot thick laid across the roads, they were also called corduroy roads.
The big logs were chained in a line, with the largest at the front, and teams of up to 16 oxen or ten horses—managed (usually with a great deal of prodding) by “bull whackers” or “bull punchers”—pulled them over the “skids” to the creek beds. A “water slinger” or “sugler” splashed water over the skid road just ahead of the log train to further reduce the friction.
As the logging moved up into the hills, the swampers smoothed out natural vertical troughs, and “chuted” the logs down to the skid roads or directly to the creek beds, with a “chute tender” wetting down the chute to ease the movement of the logs. Water for both the suglers and the chute tenders was kept in water tubs all along the skid roads and chutes. Horses carrying canvas water sacks were constantly moving from creeks or ponds to these water tubs, under the direction of “water bucks”—usually the junior members of the logging crew—who were responsible for keeping the tubs full.
The early lumbermen worked 12-hour days in the woods without benefit of power saws, steam donkeys, rails, or locomotives. With primitive tools, these rough and tough men brought down an amazing amount of timber and moved it to the mills.
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.