Life in the early days of the lumbering business in northern Wisconsin would be a closed book, had it not been for the songs of the shanty boys, which constitute the real folklore of that region.
The beautiful white pine, known also as the cork pine, was plentiful at one time in the northern forests. Beginning about the time of the end of the Civil War, crews of men, equipped with axes and saws, moved from one forest to another, cutting, skid-ding and later riding the logs down swift rivers to some convenient sawmill, where the logs were cut into fine timber. Those operations were carried on, until 1902, by the adventurous, daring soldiers of fortune, known as shanty boys. To say the least one can, of the short-sightedness of lumbermen during this period, with avarice and greed, with the aid of elastic laws, they allowed the mills of the gods to grind fast, but not fast enough to completely mar the most beautiful forests in the world today.
Many a family of social prestige and financial standing was founded by immigrant lads, who worked in the tall pines in those early days. The world outside of the lumber camps called these soldiers of fortune, lumberjacks, but the men preferred the name of shanty boys. First, came the Irish, French and Scotch, then later, the Scandinavians. The Irish gave the tone to the shanty boy literature, as we have it, for their shanty songs and stories smacked of old Erin. Their songs were original, in spite of the fact that they contained more than a hint of Erin’s Isle. The tunes to which they set the words, were usually old, familiar Irish airs, which were also reminiscent of the times when many of the men stood watch against the mast, carrying the flavor and tang of the sea.
After a long day in the woods, the shanty boy came back to camp, to feed and bed down the tired oxen and horses. Hanging his mackinaw on a rack, made of birch poles that crossed and recrossed the cabin, or on a big hook fastened to the wall, he proceeded to make his scanty toilet. When the cook’s call, “set up or we’ll throw it out,” came as sweet music to his ears, he and his jostling companions crowded themselves on rough benches, arranged on opposite sides of an oilcloth-covered table. Without further ado, they began to stow away prodigious quantities of salt pork, potatoes and beans, with buckwheat cakes stacked high on the plates and swimming in maple syrup, or in the absence of the latter, sorghum and molasses. When a shanty boy called for a little Java, a large tin cup was filled to capacity and the contents were downed in two or three swallows.
Supper over, and tin plates as empty as though a desert wind had swept them clean, the shanty boys flung their booted legs over the benches, stretched, lit their pipes and hurried into the bunk-house to spar for possession of the “deacon’s seat.” This was more than a mean wooden bench running around the bunkhouse, not unlike the forecastle of a ship,—it was the place where camp life manifested itself most richly. The lucky shanty boy, who secured the “deacon’s seat,” held sway as if he were on a throne, but his reign was apt to be short lived, as usurpers were numerous. Debates and a kangaroo court took the place of the usual story telling every Saturday night, often lasting way after midnight, into the “wee, sma’ hours” of Sunday. With a packed jury and no lack of willing witnesses, heaven help the man who was on trial!
There were able barristers on both sides. A collection of old magazines or ancient almanacs represented the Bible, upon which the oath of truthfulness was made, or an edition of Blackstone for court reference. The pseudo law books were opened at random during the trial, and interpreted by “his honor”, the judge. Contempt of court meant a fine of several pounds of tobacco, or in a grave offence, a pair of mitts from the commissary. Thus, each night brought its own amusements, thereby helping to make the long winter seem shorter and more pleasant, in spite of the isolation. (In those days, it was impossible to get WIBC, or hear the “Plantation Warblers, broadcasting from WLM.) The writer was a “big toad in the puddle.” Would that he could put into print the laughable pranks that were played, but he is avoiding the subject of his own past as far as possible. That subject would scarcely make a topic for pleasant discussion! At a Vienna Tea Party, men had their vantage time, and the writer has had his. Our dear mother, God bless her, used to say, “There are many mansions in my Father’s house.” As the saying goes, I have a “canthook hold” on this old saying of hers. For my part, I will be thankful to get a seat in the bunk-house, far from the “deacon’s chair,” in the Great Beyond.
My mind travels back to one winter of long ago called by the shanty boys, the winter of the “blue snow”. The thermometer lingered around seventeen below at its highest point, sometimes going lower than forty below. We got used to all kinds of weather and accustomed to almost anything, as the “Irishman got used to hanging”. The snow was deep, making it hard for the occasional visitor to plow his way through the great drifts to the shanty.
A crew of probably eighty men made up our camp that winter, so we learned one another’s characteristics fairly well before spring. A man in a lumber camp is taken at his face value, his past being his business and his alone. In the evening, when kangaroo courts were not in session, each in his turn was asked to relate a story or sing a song. Refusing to do his stunt to entertain the crowd, he was fined. One evening, when the north wind howled around the bunkhouse, Mike Dutton was holding the seat of honor and this was the story he related:
