Proud to Be a Riverman

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Jamoof
July 13, 2009

Log drives throughout New England created some of the richest and most colorful stories to come out of that historical period in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Drives down the Connecticut started way back when with the demand for "King Pines," reserved for the King of England and destined to become masts for the royal navy. The heaviest logging on the Connecticut took place from about 1868 or '69 until 1912 when the Holyoke Mill located on the Oxbow closed down due to strike problems. The railroads took over logging operations soon after.
It's helpful to understand the language in this song: the "CRL" is the Connecticut River Logging Co. "Belgian team" refers to the most common type of huge draft horses; most were purchased from Canada for about $100 in the 1880's. "Snubbing" the logs is easing a sledful of logs down a steep slope gently so they don't get away and run over the horses. The "Bangor Tigers" were the most select group of rivermen who were recruited from Maine when the first drives started on the Connecticut. Logs were measured in "board feet" based on a standard width of log; three million board feet might be about 15,000 logs. George Van Dyke was the renowned "log baron" for many, many years, and owned everything from forestland where the logs were cut to the mills downriver where they were cut. He became owner of the CRL and changed the name to the CVL, the Connecticut Valley Logging Co. One of the roughest sections of river was 15-mile falls (which was actually about 20 miles long), just south of Dalton, New Hampshire. The falls is now entirely under two resevoirs. Horserace Rapids was the roughest section at the start of the stretch, and Milliken's Pitch was a section toward the end that especially tied up logs and led to many deaths over the years. The riverman's tool, besides a pike pole (used for pushing logs out into the river flow) and a pair of spiked (caulked) boots was the peavey, about a six-foot long wooden tool with a twisted spike on the end, and a levered arm hinged off the side called a "cantdog." The peavey itself was often called a cantdog. Finally, "sluicing" is a term used both for logging in the snowy forest and for guiding logs downriver, and refers to steering logs down an icy narrow slope or perhaps down a wooden "sluiceway" built beside a dam.
Lyrics:
I was just fifteen when I left the mill
To work as a chopper for the CRL
Snow was heavy in the great north woods
The days were long but the food was good

Just a kid and my eyes were wide
For biscuits and beans and doughnuts and pie
Up before dawn for five months straight
Four square meals and decent pay

We was draggin' on the Perry Stream
At Connecticut Lakes with a Belgian team
The teamster there was Tom O'Brien
Best snubber there was, with no fear of dyin'

Old Tom would sluice the frozen slopes
Snubbin' the horses with an icy rope
He moved more spruce than a man could dream
Never lost a sled-he was the best I seen

But at the end of the day, that bunkhouse stank
Wet clothes steamin' in the dark and dank
We was Polish, Italian and Quebecois
And the Bangor Tigers, the best by far.

By March three million board feet lay
At Perry Stream, when we got paid
It was off to town with a loud hee-haw!
We all got drunk and we waited for the thaw.

I never did care for workin' in the camps
In the middle of the winter in the cold and damp
But when the ice let go, I was ready and then
I was proud to be a riverman.
(repeat)

I first worked the river in '82
When eleven men died by the end of June
It was hell and high water that awful year
But I weathered it through with a belly of fear

We worked the streams and drove 'em on down
The Connecticut, through New England towns
For four long months we drove until
We delivered our logs to the Holyoke Mill

I was a-workin' with Fleetwood Pride
At Horserace Rapids on the Van Dyke drive
I remember Tom Graham was the drivin' boss
In '91 when not a man was lost

But Mulliken's Pitch is a son of a gun
We'd dynamite and cut and run
Spiked boots dancin' on every log
Pushin' and a-pullin' with my cantdog

The peavey is a man's best friend
It don't do no good to know how to swim
You best stay on top of that log jam mess
Or you will find eternal rest

At Turner's Falls in mid-July
At night to town the boys would fly
Oh the ladies! and oh the fights!
Sluicin' through the day and juicin' through the nights

I worked the river for most of my life
I loved the drive-I never took no wife
My memories are full from way back when
Proud to be a riverman
(repeat)
I'm damn fine proud to be a riverman

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