Logging in the UP

[Ramblewood]

At the beginning of the 20th century, my great grandfather went from Conn. to Buffalo,NY to start a piano keyboard and "action" factory . He had the brains, his partner had the money . Buffalo was chosen because it was a great lakes/railroad transportation hub . The area was once known as the lumber capital of the world as it had the lakes/Erie canal junction with access to the port of NYC and beyond .
While fishing and hunting in the UP, he met a Mr. Johnson who had a modest mill on Drummond Island, Mich. and they became partners . A village called Johnswood was built to house the workers and the mill was expanded over the years .
Basswood was (and still is) used to make the keys with ivory covers, and hard maple was (and still is) used for the actions (hammers and levers that strike the strings). The National Hardwood Lumber inspection rules still list basswood keystock and piano action hard maple standards and I have bought and inspected both while working as a lumber buyer and inspector in the 80's .
Many of the crew were Finnish and they introduced the island to the "Finn bath" (sauna). I have been in houses with no bathtub/shower because the people used only saunas to get clean . Very handy before electricity and running water .
The mill burned with depressing regularity, as mills do, and was more elaborate with each rebuild . What had been a small circle mill for spruce/pine was expanded to a hardwood band mill with a shingle mill, stud mill and box mill by the 20's . After the big mill burned again in 1920, things began to wind down . The island did not have great maple as it was a lot of old growth with big brown hearts . Action maple must be white sapwood and the grain must be very straight . It must not diverge more than 1 inch to the lineal foot . In addition, there is a lot of birdseye which cannot be milled on an industrial scale as the "eyes" tear out on the lathes and in the planners . In the 50's, my grandfather sold 25,000 acres to the state for next to nothing and now they sell the birdseye for tons . Oh well ....
During WW1 we sold potash to the army for soap and the schooner in the attached picture is full of it as it leaves Scammon Cove for ports south .
My grandfather also sold the factory and later my father started a hardwood mill in Holland,NY which was where I started working when I was 12 as a "tally boy" for the inspector and laying stickers on the Irvington-Moore stacker .
I have more of these pictures if anyone wants me to post them . They include more locomotive picture, woods shots, and the mill buildings . It took a LOT of swearing to get this POS HP scanner to behave and I stopped before I put a deer slug through it .
I would love to hear from others with some UP logging stories and maybe there is someone out there with some knowledge of Drummond and the history of the local logging industry .

Quick question for oldtimers : I still work in the woods cutting firewood and doing tree removal . I'm about to get my first hip replacement and my doctor seems to think I should knock it off ! Anyone out there have experience cutting with a titanium/ ceramic hip ? I worry a bit about it coming apart but told the doctor to do it right because I have no intention of quitting . He muttered something that had the word "stupid" in it . I told him it was a bit late for me to go to med school so this is what I do and get used to it . It's the same thing I told my back doc. when I popped a few vertebrae and couldn't walk a few summers ago and also mentioned to the surgeon that did the 4 operations on my hands . I'm a slow learner .
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[nw axe man]

Hey there, Ramblewood.
Nice history lesson there. Sounds like you've got a lot of family legacy in both the mill industry and logging industry. If you'll post the pics, I'll sure look at them. I'm always interested in the timber industry anywhere else in the world.
I can't offer anything to your thread about the industry 3000 miles away, but I can sure offer some encouragement about the hip replacements.
December 31st of 09 I had both of my knees replaced at the same time. I didn't have the time to do one at a time. Got too much going on. They wanted me to do the 1 in 4-5 month thing but it just wouldn't wash.
Since that time I've been able to do anything I want. They told me that the two things that give people problems are kneeling down and going up and down stairs. I have no problems whatsoever with either one of these. Last year I went to Idaho elk hunting, which is my passion, and went wherever I wanted to go. The main thing is to do what the doctors say and more. Since you've workedin the woods you already know what you could do before. I've found talking to people that those that knew what there body could handle before they went bad had the best success as they wanted as much as they had back. I have a friend that had a hip replaced and he does just fine working in the woods.
Send some more history on the logging/falling industry back there.

 

[logging22]

Awesome pics man. Love it. Keep em coming ifn you can.

 

[Ramblewood]

Awesome pics man. Love it. Keep em coming ifn you can.

Glad to see people like these ! I've made peace w/ my scanner (for now) so here are a few more . I like the comparison of the original mill and the last incarnation before the last fire . The mill was named Kreetan Co. as a subsidiary of Wood & Brooks Co.
I actually bought a lot of maple from a nearby mill in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario that came from my great grandfathers timberland and sold it to Baldwin Piano in Miss. who we made keyboards for in the 40's and felt like I was keeping a bit of family tradition going for one more generation .

Thanks to NW Axe Man for the reply to my hip question . I will show it to my surgeon . When I went to the pre-surgery class, I walked up the 16 flights of stairs to get there (part of my getting ready is PRE-hab ;exercise, muscle strengthening) and they had to admit I might be able to do more than many of their typical patients . Shut the doctor right up !

 

[bobt]

Hi Ramblewood.

Logging in the U.P. of Michigan has had a long and colorful history. After the great Chicago fire of 1870 there was a boom time for Pine logs and lumber that was harvested in the UP and used to rebuild Chicago and Antigo, Wisconsin. Then Henry Ford was influential in the hardwood market in the Model T days and beyond. Good reading can be found about this time if you search for it.

After the Model T days, there have been many loggers who made a living from the timber industry. I don't believe that many of them became "fabulously wealthy" though. Most simply made a meager living.

Case in point is my Grandfather. My grandfather was by trade a hard rock miner, and made a "poke" out West.

He came back to the central UP, and he and a partner landed a contract to log off three sections of land West of our home town. My Grandfather bankrolled the whole thing. They erected a lumber camp, and hired about 6 men. They logged off the first section in the first winter, skidded the logs to landings accessible to the trucks of the time, and after the spring breakup, began trucking the logs to the railroad near town. Just as they had decked up hundreds of cords, the great depression hit. They ended up selling the logs for pennies on the dollar, and my Grandfather's "poke" was wiped out! To his credit, he payed off his men in full, although he "lost his shirt".

Many other "jobbers' have told similar tales of woe regarding logging in the UP. The land of nine months of winter and three months of mighty tough sledding! The work is hard and the pay is weak, but they endure, as they have "SISU".

Bob

 

[lfnh]

At the beginning of the 20th century, my great grandfather went from Conn. to Buffalo,NY to start a piano keyboard and "action" factory . He had the brains, his partner had the money . ]

Interesting reading this piece of history, thanks for the post.

Any chance your great grandfather gained knowledge of piano manufacturing around Ivoryton, Deep River, or Essex Conn ?

 

[Ramblewood]

One of the legacies we left on the island was the 1/2 million BF of lumber on the pier (see picture previous post) when it collapsed . You can take a boat among the pilings that remain, and look down and see lumber in messy piles under the surface . These boards, shingles and pilings spread out through the cove and litter the shore . In addition, the pilings float like an S & S Logging wet dream (Ax Men reference )! My mother would dry out some of the cedar shingles and paint landscapes of the area on them . A lot of the logs still had the Kreetan Co. brand (stamped, not burned) on them . As kids, we would take a small 10 HP runabout and a pickaroon and tow them out of the boating lanes so we wouldn't hit them when we raced around in the boats . Maybe "raced" is the wrong word for a 10 HP motor .

 

[Ramblewood]

Interesting reading this piece of history, thanks for the post.

Any chance your great grandfather gained knowledge of piano manufacturing around Ivoryton, Deep River, or Essex Conn ?

Most definitely ! That is where my great grandfather was working as manager for a part of Pratt and Reed Ivory works . I believe he was born in Essex .
After my father died 20 years ago, a guy from The Smithsonian called to ask a similar question . He came out to the house and we went through the barn and found a box of great grandfathers papers . Among them was a small address book with pages of tiny print consisting of all the costs (water, electric, customers) to run the piano key division . There was a letter folded into the back from the board of directors thanking him for all the weekends and evenings he worked for no extra pay . In the other papers, we put together letters and notes between him and a Mr. Brooks in which they planned to start a rival keyboard company . This is where they decided on Buffalo . What my great grandfather had been doing on those weekends was going through the files and noting all the info he would need to start a rival company ! I ended up donating the papers and about 50 pictures of the factory to The Smithsonian for a Wood & Brooks archive .
In the old days, ivory was the plastic of it's day . They used it for all the things we now make out of plastic and Ivoryton was the center of the ivory trade . Buttons, billiard balls, combs, beads were all made in the area . I still have a bunch of artifacts from those days including pieces of tusks with bullets buried in them . Some hunter had hit the tusk but the critter lived for many years after and the tusk would have a large growth inside, around the wound . That tended to make the heffalump a bit testy . It must have happened a lot because I have 4 or 5 of them . I also have some brass that had been melted and poured into the hollow part of the tusk . It seems that ivory was sold by the pound and the Arab traders would add a little weight to them . The buyers would carry a stick with a metal tip and tap down into the tusk to listen for the "tink" of metal on metal . Into the 60's, my father would get letters from poachers (many written in French, of Flemish depending on whose colony it was sent from) offering ivory on the black market .

 

[lfnh]

Very interesting post on the raw ivory. Thanks.

As a youngster, made more than a few business rides with my father to Pratt Read factory. Mostly remember the wooden works and keyboard assembly. That'd be back in late 50's. Just before they ceased operations.

Good on you for the Smithsonian donation.

 

[nw axe man]

Hi Ramblewood.

Logging in the U.P. of Michigan has had a long and colorful history. After the great Chicago fire of 1870 there was a boom time for Pine logs and lumber that was harvested in the UP and used to rebuild Chicago and Antigo, Wisconsin. Then Henry Ford was influential in the hardwood market in the Model T days and beyond. Good reading can be found about this time if you search for it.

After the Model T days, there have been many loggers who made a living from the timber industry. I don't believe that many of them became "fabulously wealthy" though. Most simply made a meager living.

Case in point is my Grandfather. My grandfather was by trade a hard rock miner, and made a "poke" out West.

He came back to the central UP, and he and a partner landed a contract to log off three sections of land West of our home town. My Grandfather bankrolled the whole thing. They erected a lumber camp, and hired about 6 men. They logged off the first section in the first winter, skidded the logs to landings accessible to the trucks of the time, and after the spring breakup, began trucking the logs to the railroad near town. Just as they had decked up hundreds of cords, the great depression hit. They ended up selling the logs for pennies on the dollar, and my Grandfather's "poke" was wiped out! To his credit, he payed off his men in full, although he "lost his shirt".

Many other "jobbers' have told similar tales of woe regarding logging in the UP. The land of nine months of winter and three months of mighty tough sledding! The work is hard and the pay is weak, but they endure, as they have "SISU".

Bob

Yeah, there have been many who made a living in the timber industry that didn't get rich. I'd wager that most of us on this site that have worked in the woods would agree that working in the woods is more of an addictive work than most. Although, I have met some who hated the "work". As a matter of fact I met one guy who wasn't afraid of work at all. I saw him lay down right beside it and go to sleep.

 

[Ramblewood]

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These are two shots of a piano key and it's action . In the overhead shot, you can see the white ivory key cover over the basswood key and the other shot shows how the maple was used for the hammer and the linkage . All that complicated linkage is for one key . 87 more, and you have a keyboard .
The guy from the Smithsonian had visited some of the old employees of our factory and had picked up this model from the old foreman and gave it to me . He was interested in the ivory bleaching house that keyboard factories had . They looked like a greenhouse and ours was on the roof of the main building . Because ivory is not uniform in color, women were hired to match the ivory blanks for color in special south facing rooms (for natural light) and they were put in racks that held one entire pianos worth of stock . It was dipped in bleach and the racks put "under glass" in the bleach house . Every so often the blanks were turned until, after months, they were white enough to go into the plant to be used . Women were used for this because it was felt they had a better sense of color .

 

[lfnh]

Attachment 181583Attachment 181584

for some reason the pictures don't show ?

 

[Ramblewood]

for some reason the pictures don't show ?[/QUOTE]

I'm trying again .

 

[lfnh]

Yup. showing now.
Can you help identify the woods used in 2nd photo ?

 

[Ramblewood]

The actual key is a very high quality basswood . NHLA rules: "Each cutting shall be free of spots, streaks and curly or cross grain". One face and 90% of the reverse face also have to be sapwood . In the picture, that piece is what is under the ivory so it is hard to see anything but the side . What looks like pronounced grain is actually water marks from some time ago .
All the rest of the action is piano action hard maple . It must be no.1 white (sapwood both faces), have very straight grain : "does not diverge more than 1" in 12" of length in relation to the edge of the piece", be free of swirly, cross, curly grain, birdseye, mineral streaks and season checks .
The display box is covered in real imitation naugahyde (plastic stuff) and only looks like wood from a distance or in a picture !

 

[lfnh]

Thanks Ramblewood.

Any idea of the annual Mbf basswood and hard maple used in production ? Were the dowels (connecting various pieces) produced in house ?

 

[Ramblewood]

I can't tell you with any accuracy what the footage actually was but we had 4 kilns that look to be about 30 MBF capacity each . As basswood and maple have very different drying schedules and could not be easily dried together . They must have dried the bass in blocks of 30,000 at a time . Looking at the model, I estimate 20% more maple per key . If the kilns ran 24/7, as they should they should have been able to dry approx. 1.3 million feet per year of which maybe 600,000 could have been basswood . When I was traveling New York State buying lumber, I ran into old timers that told be they shipped bass keystock to W&B by the truckload and never found a user to replace that business when the plant closed . These were mills in prime basswood country so if you use this info and the "guess and by golly" method of deduction, you come up with ... a whole bunch of basswood !
The dowels were made in house as they needed to be sure of the quality of the maple; especially for straightness of grain . Any cross grain would cause the hammers and other parts to break and you can see in the pictures that it would be a real pain to replace one of those after it was in a completed piano . I can;t imagine Steinway putting up with that more than once . Also, Pratt & Reed was, and is, producing a rival product and the two fought hard every time the Steinway contract came up for bid . As the only major keyboard producers, they both knew that while price may be important, quality was the first priority to keeping the big mfgs. coming back year after year . I will look around for a picture I have of the Steinway rep standing with two tusks taller than he was . He does NOT look like a man that would put up with anything but perfection .
I know I didn't give you the info you were looking for but all the people that could give me more details are dead . I was about 10 when the plant closed and was more interested in Davy Crockett than keyboard mfg.

 

[lfnh]

Thanks again Ramblewood. It must have been real interesting to talk with the loggers that supplied the maple and basswood.

Same here with the Davy Crockett. To young to know enough to ask the right questions that i'd ask today.

Be great to see more scanned photos if you get a chance...

 

[Ramblewood]

Here are a few more I've scanned in . There were two rail lines that ran back into the woods . The locomotives and eventually the rails were sold for scrap but I remember walking the old right of way in the 70's and I would bet they are now part of the network of snowmobile trails that make the island a well known destination for sledders . The company also had a sheep ranch and a turkey farm to raise food for the crew as well as a movie theater, store, doctors office that my grandfather used to run a fishing/hunting store complete with a sea plane ramp and boathouse with capacity to lift any yacht on the lake out of the water for repairs . The building is still there as is the wonderful stone house my great grandfather built for himself and his hunting buddies . All the rest of the buildings in the pictures were torn down by the 40's to avoid paying tax on them . The pads for the foundations were still there in the 80's .

 

[nw axe man]

This thread sure gives me a new appreciation for pianos. My mother has a Steinway and my wife has a Baldwin. I'll never look at a piano the same again. Keeps the pics coming, especially if you have any woods shots.