Category: Pennsylvania’s Lumber History

When he attended the 50th reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913, Micajah Weiss was honored as the oldest veteran in attendance. When he died a year later in September 1914 he was the oldest pensioner from the Civil War, but no one seemed to know exactly how old he was. He is reported to have been born some time between 1800 to 1803, but is also listed as having been born in 1810, 1811 and 1818 in various census records. He was born in Delaware Water Gap, PA, at a location listed as ‘Dancing Creek’ or ‘Dancing Rift.’ His grave stone has the dates 1801-1914. What is known is that he made his living as a farmer and a lumberman. He was known as an experienced raftsman, having taken hundreds of rafts down the Delaware River in his during his 55 year career in lumbering.

The first timber raft traveled down the Delaware River in 1764, piloted by Daniel Skinner. The last raft was floated down the Delaware in 1922. As such, Micajah was alive for most of the rafting-era of the Delaware River. It was reported that he would make the 100-mile return trip from Trenton, NJ, where he sold his rafts back to his home in Beaver Brook, NY, located just north of the PA boarder, on foot. He was also know to have made trips to Easton, PA, and on down the river to Philadelphia.

One of his obituaries noted that Micajah had wanted to take one last raft down the Delaware a few years before his death, “just to show the boys that he had not forgotten how”… he was eventually talked out of the idea.

In August 1862, Micajah enlisted in the Union Army with the 141st Regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, Company G. Further complicating the mater of his age, he is listed on the Muster Roll as 44 years old, but this might have been a lie so as to not seem “too old” for duty. Whatever his real age, he was well past the age of conscription for the Army. When asked about what battles he was in his reply was “Most all of ’em.” In addition to Gettysburg the 141st was at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Battle of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor and was even present at Appomattox Court House.

Micajah Weiss was honored at the 50th reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg as the oldest veteran present. Newspapers across the country picked up an article about his attendance. He was reported to have had his picture taken with Col. John Clem, who at 61 was the Youngest Veteran present and was at the time still an active duty military officer. Col. John Clem was better known as “Johnny Shiloh”, famous for his exploits as a young drummer boy.

Michajah would make the newspapers again the next year when he passed away on September 22, 1914. The New York Times listed his age as 114. The Orange County Times listed his age as 112. The Gettysburg Star and Sentinel split the difference. They listed his age as 112 in the head line and 114 in the article.

May the 4th be with you! What do you do when the Galactic Empire is invading your forest planet and your only defense involves cutting down trees, yet you are part of a pre-industrial society that hasn’t developed metal working technology? Just rely on your trusty, time tested stone ax!

The Ewoks were able to use their dense forest home to their advantage against a mechanized foe.

The forest planet of Endor was in reality California’s redwood forests, where the filming took place. The stone axe was in reality a foam headed prop, not suitable for cutting logs at all!

The Lumber Museum has two stone axe heads on display in our main exhibit.

These stone axe heads represent a 3/4 groove head style of groundstone axe. Stone axes and other stone implements were common objects used by the Native Americans who lived on the land that would become known as Pennsylvania, from the end of the last Ice Age to contact with Europeans. The Pennsylvania Lumber Museum resides in the traditional homeland of the Seneca Nation, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy.

Are people always after your lucky charms? Well, with a bit o’ the “Luck of the Irish” and a trusty chainsaw you can easily recover your lost, wish-granting gold coins. At least that’s how the titular Leprechaun (played by Warwick Davis) goes about it in the 1995 straight-to-video movie: Leprechaun 3.

The Leprechaun is using a McCulloch Electramac EM300s electric chainsaw… perhaps ‘McCulloch’ is Scot-Irish? While it isn’t the most powerful choice, this electric chainsaw is a sensible option for use indoors, bisecting the magician Fazio. There will be no build-up of CO2 fumes from a gasoline-powered engine to worry about; the Leprechaun may be out to murder those who take his coins, but at least he isn’t going to subject the audience to carbon monoxide poisoning.

The first mass-produced electric chainsaw was invented by Andreas Stihl in 1926 and it predated the introduction of a gasoline-powered saw by a year. It was a large, two-man saw weighing over 100 pounds. It sold well despite this drawback, remaining in production until 1948. The applications this saw could undertake were limited because of the need for a cord to connect it to an electric power source.

An electric chainsaw like the McCulloch Electramac EM300s is best suited to homeowners doing yard work, just as far as your extension cord can take you. As small/electric chainsaws are not well-suited to the rigors of forestry work or timber harvest, there are currently no electric chainsaws in the Lumber Museum’s collection (However, if anyone has a Stihl STG model that they want to donate, please let me know). The Lumber Museum does have a Stihl Model 017 light-weight 2-cycle chainsaw that was used by the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) at Susquehannock State Forest in the early 2000s, on display as an example of tools used in modern forestry work.

If you are interested in more information on McCulloch chainsaws and want to see one of the museum’s McCulloch saws, check out the December 2020 edition of the “What chainsaw did that movie use?” blog post.

And remember: if you happen to find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it’s probably best just to leave it be.

North-central Pennsylvania had many short line logging railroads that were incorporated in the late 19th and early 20th century in service of the lumber industry. These railroads often only lasted a few years as production would move elsewhere after land was clear cut or a mill closed. One such railroad was the Oleona Railroad Company which transported lumber cut in the Kettle Creek Valley. Incorporated in 1901, the Oleona RR ran eight miles from Cross Fork, PA to Oleona, PA. The Goodyear Lumber Company financed and built the railroad but the only trains that operated on it belonged to the Lackawanna Lumber Company and the Pennsylvania Stave Company. Eventually, the Oleona RR was combined with the Oleona and Germania Railroad, an independent operator with five miles of track from Oleona to Germania Brook, resulting in a single 13 mile-long short line. After the last lands owned by the Lackawanna Lumber Company in the Kettle Creek Valley were cut the railroad was sold to the American Sugar Refining Company in 1908, the parent company of the Pennsylvania Stave Company. When their stave mill, located in Cross Fork, closed in 1912, the Oleona Railroad was dismantled. The two Shay locomotives that operated on the line were transferred to other logging railroads owned by the Brooklyn Cooperage Company, a subsidiary of the American Sugar Refining Company.

Today, in honor of his 212th birthday, we look at Abraham Lincoln’s vampire hunting weapon of choice. Having died about 80 years before chainsaws were widely available, Abraham Lincoln had to do his rail splitting and vampire hunting with an axe.

While the axe in the movie poster above appears to be a Yankee or Delaware pattern, it seems that during the movie the 16th President favors a Baltimore-Kentucky pattern axe, perhaps an homage to his birth-state of Kentucky.

So, happy birthday to a great vampire hunter and an even greater President!

November 30th, 1908 was a good day for the Emporium Lumber Company. That day their band saw mill at Austin, Pa sawed an estimated 11,704 board feet of lumber from just eleven logs. The logs were a mix of cherry and poplar tress. To commemorate this day, and to show off, the company had pictures taken of the big haul on log cars before it was cut at the mill. During the photo development process the tree type and estimated board feet for each log was labeled on the film. “Sawed at Emporium Lumber Co’s Mill Austin, PA” and “11-30-08” also appear on the images.

Emporium Lumber must have been very proud of these logs as the PA Lumber Museum has multiples copies of each image in our collection. The images, along with other papers and archival materials, were donated to the museum by the descendants of William Sykes, one of the co-founders of the Emporium Lumber Company. Someone commented on the back of one of the photo postcards (LM76.12.75)- “Wonderful size for a Cherry Tree”.

The volume of a log was estimated in board feet, with one board foot measuring 12 x 12 x 1 inches, or any combination equating to 144 cubic inches. Estimations of log volume were made with the assistance of a timber scale stick, used to measure the length and diameter of a sawed log. The log scaler (the person who’s job it was to take the measurements) could then work out a mathematical formula which could differ depending on the type of scale used. For the Doyle scale, one of the more popular scales at the turn of the 20th century, the equation was L((D-4)/4)squared. “L” was the length of the log and “D” was the small end diameter of the log. To simplify this process, “Ready Reckoner” books contained sets of tables to assist in the estimation.

It is winter in North-Central Pennsylvania; it is cold and the ground is covered in snow. The men of the Civilian Conservation Corps didn’t get snow days. They were out working year-round and needed winter clothes that kept them warm but also allowed them to perform their duties.

Ernest Wilson spent two winters in the CCC: the first at Camp S-133 Hammersley Fork where he was stationed from October 1934- June 1935, and the second at Camp S-122 Two Mile Run from July 1935- March 1936. His winter clothes are on display in the PA Lumber Museum’s main exhibit.

Similar clothing is depicted in the painting, “CCC Boy, Winter Costume” painted by Pennsylvania-born artist Sterling Smeltzer; currently in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Sterling Smeltzer was born in Williamsburg, PA in 1908. He attended Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon University) in Pittsburgh where he studied engineering and structural design and art. He graduated in 1931- right into the Great Depression. The Roosevelt administration created several programs that commissioned public art to employ out-of-work artists during this time. The first, The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), was run by the US Treasury Department and was short-lived, lasting only from December 1933 to June 1934. Smeltzer was commissioned to paint a mural in the Altoona, PA post office for the PWAP, but this mural is currently unaccounted for. He was also commissioned to paint a post office mural in Willoughby, OH in 1938 that has also unfortunately been lost to time.

“CCC Boy, Winter Costume” was most likely painted by Smeltzer as part of the CCC Art Project that was operated by the US Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture, 1934-1937. As part of this program, artists were assigned to CCC camps to create art as a reflection of the life and accomplishments of CCC enrollees.

During his time in association with the CCC, Smeltzer was tasked with putting together an exhibit in a new museum located in a CCC-built structure situated in the CCC-developed Hawks Nest State Park in West Virginia. Smeltzer created several original paintings to help fill-out the exhibit. This small museum has been moved from the original CCC building, but reproductions of the paintings (displayed to preserve the originals) can be be viewed at the Ansted Culture and History Museum.

Sterling Smeltzer is listed on various websites as a “WPA” artist, but does not appear to have worked for the Federal Arts Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). It seems to be a common mistake to label any artist who made art for the Federal Government during the Depression as a “WPA” artist. After the Depression, Smeltzer went on to work for Curtiss Aircraft in it’s industrial arts section. He eventually retired from North American Aviation and passed away in 1982. He is buried in Altoona.

Here are some images of CCC enrollees from Camp S-87 Ole Bull preforming winter work in 1936. These men working in the snow made sure to bundle up in their CCC-issued winter clothing.