BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp!

Michigan Badger · Jul 6, 2006

This post has fulfilled it's purpose and the pictures have been removed to free up space.

Thanks for reading, looking, and your encouragement.

Badger

rvbvetter · Jul 7, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

WOW!! If it wasn't for the location, I'd say you found one of my dads old logging camps. He was born on the year 1900 and worked the camps. He had two teams of horses to drag the logs out to where the model T log trucks would be loaded. Later on ran a steam donkey for some years. Then to a Caterpiller.
The hook in your hand was a choker hook. Used at the end of the steam donkey cable for faster hook and unhook around a log to be pull out of a canyon or ravine usually. It worked as long as pressure on the cable from the steam donkey was maintained. But it did come off at times and the cable whip lash from the tension on the cable, was sometimes fatal and often times involved dismemberment for the men who were down in the canyon who had just set the choker. Cool finds!! WTG!! HH

Michigan Badger · Jul 7, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Great information rvbvetter! Thanks!

Badger

Michigan Badger · Jul 7, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

tinpan said:
IRONPAN LOL

Ya, good idea! ironpan for right now...LOL!

One never knows, next week I could be back to being pulltab-pan again

rvbvetter · Jul 7, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

If you find where it looked like little shacks stood together or in a row. Then it might be like the ones my dad always described. The men slept in them and one of the shacks was always designated the post office. The men would gather around it for mail call. And it also served as the place the men would gather to get paid. Sometimes in silver dollars, sometimes paper currency and I remember him mentioning gold coins. But I don't know or remember how frequent that was. I suppose it could of depended on how frequent or regular they got their pay. According to my dad, you never knew when pay would show.
HH

Bavaria Mike · Jul 8, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Nice iron works MB, LOL, the best iron finds can offer! Have you tried to google earth the site, just maybe it could help find the house sites. HH, Mike

comfyinvermont · Jul 8, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Very nice finds Badger. Thanks for the pictures and information. Congrats...Lance

Boobydoo · Jul 8, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Thant is the motherload of awesome relics.
How much of this stuff do you keep and haul back home?
The sheet weight of lugging them back would be exhausting I would think.

Nice digs my friend, WTG!!

Smiles!
BDoo

Michigan Badger · Jul 8, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Boobydoo said:
Thant is the motherload of awesome relics.
How much of this stuff do you keep and haul back home?
The sheet weight of lugging them back would be exhausting I would think.

Nice digs my friend, WTG!!

Smiles!
BDoo

I take most of it home and sort it out there. I 1st do electrolysis on each piece and then when I have a large pile I'll scrub each piece with soap and hot water and then dry them in an old oven. I'll then coat each item with something to preserve it. I like to leave the artifact pieces of iron flat color with a hint of old rust showing. Once they're dried and sealed from the air they'll last for centuries.

Most of my finds will end up in museums and they will be enhanced by lifesize cardboard images of lumberjacks, etc.

Southcacalaky · Jul 8, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Some really great artifacts there, Art...

Mirage · Jul 9, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Nice pile of iorn. Guess thats what you get at a lumberjack camp.

Mirage

Michigan Badger · Jul 9, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Mirage said:
Nice pile of iorn. Guess thats what you get at a lumberjack camp.

Mirage

Partly, often under the iron and tall grasses can be other things

groundfisher · Jul 9, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Great job on the logging relics Badger.You're doing a great service by preserving the past of the great Northwoods and I can tell you are loving every minute of it.
Best of luck to you out there. HH!

rvbvetter · Jul 9, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

If you should run accross any problems at your logging camp site.
Just remember.
We all have the greatest confidence, that you'll be able to Iron them out.
HH

Pennyworth · Jul 9, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

I thought digging coins makes me tired. Just looking at all of that iron I can imagine how much digging you did.

Nice relics,congratulations.

j2fun4u · Jul 10, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

nice lookin finds...congrats, get out there...

Jeffro · Jul 10, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Hey there Badger, what do you use for preserving? I have a couple old cross cut saws I'd like to do.

Rusted_Iron · Jul 11, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Great finds and pics, Badger! This is the mother lode of iron relics.

That McCormick part, is that from an old McCormick tractor (as in, McCormick Farmall)??

Love the crosscut saws. Keep those pics comin'.

hollowpointred · Jul 11, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

cool relics badge. you could start a lumberjack museum with all of that stuff!

Michigan Badger · Jul 11, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Rusted_Iron said:
That McCormick part, is that from an old McCormick tractor (as in, McCormick Farmall)??

You got me? All I know is the lumberjacks farmed summers and logged only during the winter. After they ceased I don't know what happened at the site.

One thing is for sure, this has all been gone a very long time. Up here they leave old junk barns stand until they turn to dust.

So far the patent dates I've found on items are in the 1880's.

Rusted_Iron · Jul 11, 2006

Re: BIG DIG At The Lumberjack Camp! WARNING If You Don't Like Iron Don't View!

Michigan Badger said:
Rusted_Iron said:

That McCormick part, is that from an old McCormick tractor (as in, McCormick Farmall)??

Click to expand...

You got me? All I know is the lumberjacks farmed summers and logged only during the winter. After they ceased I don't know what happened at the site.

One thing is for sure, this has all been gone a very long time. Up here they leave old junk barns stand until they turn to dust.

So far the patent dates I've found on items are in the 1880's.

McCormick started making tractors somewhere around 1905 after merging with a couple other companies and adopting the name International Harvester, but it turns out they made a lot of their own farm equipment well before that (back into the 1850's), such as horse-drawn mowers, binders, and so forth. Your relic is probably a part from one of those. They were a huge outfit, located in Wisconsin, so it makes sense you'd find some of their stuff at a northern lumber / farm camp.

Interesting bit of history on McCormick:
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/libraryarchives/ihc/cyrus.asp