#11 Beans, Ballads, and Caulk Boots
Gus visits the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum
and explores the lumbering tradition of the Maine North Woods
Cathy Jewitt, Author and Editor
John Meader, Photo and Content Editor
Caulk boots. Photo courtesy of John Meader.^1
It would have been difficult to find a lumberman working in the Maine North Woods during the early twentieth century who didn’t express an opinion about baked beans. The beans helped to provide protein and part of the roughly 8,000 calorie diet the men consumed daily.^2 Naturally, beans found their way into tales and songs composed in the lumber camps, as did memorable, sometimes tragic, events. Specialized gear and tools, like the Lombard Log Hauler and spiked-soled caulk boots, played integral roles in the story of Maine’s logging past.
In 1963, Gus visited a newly opened museum in Patten, a small town located close to Baxter State Park and 90 miles north of the city of Bangor. That year, town residents Lore Rogers and Caleb Scribner opened the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum. The museum’s buildings and extensive grounds are home to artifacts and displays that illustrate the history and culture of the lumber industry in Maine. The museum’s location on the Shin Pond Road is fitting; for over 175 years, this road has been a highway over which have passed thousands of woodsmen, their horses and supplies, on their way to cut pine, spruce, fir and hardwoods in the woods of northern Maine. As Gus explored the buildings and collections of tools, boats, machines, photographs, and films, he found a venue that needed postcards, something he had the capability to create.^3
Gus’s postcards #186 and #434 of the Patten Lumberman’s Museum, circa 1966. Third photo is of John holding up postcard #434 at the same scene in 2023.
Gus and the Rambler.
During the summer and fall of 1966, Augustus “Gus” Phillips, sole proprietor of the Phillips maps and postcard businesses, must have felt as if he were spending more time driving around the state in his Rambler station wagon than working in his home studio and tending his gardens in Northeast Harbor. “Gustus, I’m coming with you on this trip,” his wife Mary stated often during those months, especially when the destination included Baxter State Park, Katahdin, and the North Woods. With their station wagon piled high with packages of maps and boxes of postcards, Gus and Mary delivered orders to customers. In late summer and fall, several large blue-hued hubbard squashes were tucked among the orders, to be gifted to customers, who over the years had become friends. A trip to the Patten area would often include an overnight stay at Augustine’s in Shin Pond. A delivery at Mount Chase Camp meant Gus would stay to swap stories and news with Harold Schmidt. Along the way, if Mary were with him, they’d stop for pie; for Gus it had to be apple pie with a slice of sharp cheddar.
By the time he and Mary made their visits to the North Woods in 1966, Gus’s Lumbermen’s Museum postcards were selling well, not only at the Museum, but also at area towns and sporting camps. As his postcard business took off, so did Gus. Shooting aerial photos for postcards while flying with bush pilots, such as Ray Porter out of Shin Pond, proved to be lucrative and, for Gus, a good excuse to go flying.^4
Bush pilot Ray Porter and Gus getting ready for a flight from Shin Pond, 1966.
Left: Gus’s postcard #189, Lower Shin Pond and float planes. Center: Gus’s postcard #364, Shin Pond, piloted by Ray Porter.
Right: Gus’s postcard #229, Upper and Lower South Branch Pond, Baxter State Park, piloted by Ray Porter.
Gus’s postcard #435 Bull moose grazing.
Capturing aerial shots whenever he he could—if the money for a half or whole hour flight could be worked into the trip budget—Gus would fly while Mary stayed on the ground. Having accompanied him on one flight and watched as he twisted and turned and leaned out of his seat to snap photos, had been enough time in the air for her. She still scolded him, fruitlessly, for “daredevil tricks.” Even on the ground—his scrambling up onto the roof of the Rambler to “get a better shot” or jumping from rock to rock to “get a closer look” at a moose in a remote pond—worried her to no end. Mary never flew in a small plane with Gus again. Fortunately, many of Gus’s postcards required less rigorous photographic adventures.^5
Word of the history preserved at the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum spread in the 1960s. More visitors, both local and from away, came to learn about a unique and long-gone way of life in the densely forested and remote areas of Maine between the 1840s and early 1900s.
Historic photos from Maine’s Northwoods lumbering tradition. Photos courtesy of the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum, Patten, Maine.
Rhonda Brophy, Director of the Lumbermen’s Museum, described the origins of the museum to Cathy and John when we met on August 31, 2023:
The original museum building.
Gus postcard #57.
“Frank Rogers, he’s the president of the board, his grandfather Lore Rogers was the one who started the museum along with Caleb Scribner. The building, that main building, was a camp at the base of Mount Chase. And so it was donated, it was disassembled, brought over here and reassembled. And if you look at those logs, they were all hand-hewed, so that’s an interesting aspect of it that people don’t always realize. It’s actually olden, it’s a Swedish method or something like that, the way they joined it. So that was like in ‘62 and they officially incorporated January of ‘63.
Dr. Lore Rogers.
Public domain.
Actually the museum started out many years before that with Dr. Rogers and Caleb Scribner building these little dioramas. And it was in the back of a grocery store. Then it got too big and it moved to the library where Dr. Roger’s wife Katherine was the librarian. Then it started to outgrow that. Realizing the industry was changing so much, Dr. Rogers came from a logging family. He had already retired, both of them, Caleb and Lore had already retired, and they were just childhood friends and reconnected. When they started getting bigger equipment, and that Lombard [Log Hauler], that came from Sherman Lumber Company, but a few parts were missing, so they would go and find these parts on old abandoned ones [Lombards]. But we don’t know what number it is because the brass plate is missing. There were only 83 [Lombards] anyways, and they had brass plates on them [with their number].^6
Gus’s postcard #187 of Museum’s Lombard Log Hauler in 1966 (left), and the same Lombard in 2024 (right), photo by John Meader.
Dell Turner, 1980.
Photo by Michael Meader.
The history of Maine’s lumbering tradition holds a personal connection for John through his grandfather Dell Turner. Dell told many stories about his experiences as a cook in various lumber camps between 1905-1920. John recorded some of these stories in 1979 and 1980 as part of an independent study at the University of Maine. Working closely with Professor Edward “Sandy” Ives, the Founder and Director of the Maine Folklife Center, John turned those recordings and further research material into a book titled Dell Turner, The Stories of his Life, published by the Northeast Folklore Society in 1988.^7
After spending two years at a woods camp near the Great Northern’s Grant Farm near Ragged Lake, east of Patten, with his aunt and uncle who ran the operation, Dell got his first job as a cook for John and Tom Kelly out of Patten for $30 a month. Here Dell tells the story in his own words, from one of John’s tape-recorded interviews in the spring of 1980:
Dell Turner, circa 1910, about the time he went into the woods to cook.
Dell: “I hired and went up with John Kelly and Tom up to Patten. I could swing dough then, by the Jesus, with any of them. So they wanted a cook then at $30 a month. . . .I cooked eleven winters…in that one camp….that was up to Patten. Go up to Patten and go up around Chamberlain (Lake) and up through that country, see.” (1327.018)^8
John: “What did you cook them?”
Dell: “Well, I mean, you cook potatoes and meat, bread, donuts, everything the same as you would have at a boarding house, prepare them just the same thing. Beans in the morning, beans at noon, every day. And, uh, supper, you have meat, boiled meat, baked meat. Whatever comes easiest to get, see? Then they have their potato and their turnips and their carrots and stuff. That's that. Biscuits, cake, pies. Anything they wanted. There was no certain things at all. It just been good old-fashioned grub.”
John: “What about the beans?”
Dell: “Well now, your beans, your bean-hole beans. The first thing, you dig your hole. Then you get your rocks.”
John: “How deep do you dig it?”
Cooking bean-hole beans at the Patten Lumbermen's Museum. Photo courtesy of the Penobscot Marine Museum.
Dell: “Two feet. That's all according to the pot. Well, you gotta have two feet anyway. In little pots, you gotta put them down, so you can cover them with six, eight inches of dirt over the top. You dig your hole. Then you build your fire. Put your rocks all in around your fire. Keep piling the wood to it and you get what you want. Then you go dig that all out, have your beans all ready. Set them right in there. Cover them up. And you put them on same as this morning. Getting ready this morning, put them on. Then tomorrow morning, you go take them out and have them for breakfast. Cook‘em overnight.”
John: “[Do] they have a different flavor from beans you cook [today]?”
Dell: “Oh, I guess they do. I guess they do. Well now, three of them pots, them big pots, we cook four. They take the four pots. Take 80 pound of beans.
John: You cook four pots every day?
Dell: Every day, seven days a week. Was at that time, that's the cheapest thing that you could feed 'em was be ans. Christ, you could buy 'em for dollar, dollar and half, a hundred. Yes sir. Beans. Jesus Christ, in the woods that's all you see is beans and beef.”
John: “What kind of pots did you cook them in?”
Dell: “Iron pots. A big pot would, some would have three legs, some would have four. About a four-inch leg. Yep. That's where your pot wouldn't tip. See, when you set them in, them legs would go down in the ground, see, in the coals, you see. That kept the pots from, from rocking, for them, pots on the bottom were round. That's the reason they put the legs on them, so they wouldn't go sideways. You never tasted nothing in your life any better than a good old-fashioned bean-hole bean. Put the old pork right to them, and little molasses and stuff, pepper and salt.”
John: “Would you have a big dining hall like that you fed the men in?”
A typical dining room/cook room at supper time. Photo courtesy of the Patten Lumbermen's Museum.
Dell: “Oh, hell, yes, they'd have a, oh the kitchen was as long as this house, and the front end was the cook-room, see. Well, you're in there cooking, and you kept your potatoes and everything in there. Your turnips, so they wouldn't freeze. And they hung their beef in the dingle.”
John: “A dingle? Yeah. What's a dingle?”
Dell: “Well, that's the space they had between the cook house, or the dining room we called it, and the camp where the men slept. And they kept their beef hanging there. And they kept their wood piled in under there, so you'd keep your snow off. It was over both ends, see, at the end of each camp, see, it made a side. So when you come out of the men's camp, going into the dining room, see, it was just the same as going from this room through that one into the next one, see? Yes, it was all connected together. And they'd have, uh, all, we used to run about six tables—ten, twelve feet long. Oh, there was about fifteen men on the side, and they'd take a log and split it. And put legs in it, for benches, table seats. There were no chairs or nothin. And they'd have one of them on each side of your table. And you had it, when you'd sit down, you had to step in over it. You couldn't lift the son-of-a-bitch up.”
John: “What'd the men do at dinner (lunch) time in the woods? Yeah, they didn't come back to eat, did they?”
Left to right: Cookees bringing dinner (lunch); a spring river cook site; dinner arrives by sled; eating dinner at noon; the cook’s outfit: eating beans and biscuits.
Photos 1,2,3,4,5 courtesy of the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum, photo 6 courtesy the Penobscot Marine Museum.
Dell: “No, no, no, no, no, no. They ate right in the woods. Had a good big fire. Warm beans up. All the cookees took the meals out for them. They didn't take and carry their own lunch. If you had nine crews, you had nine cookees. Well, each cookee had his crew to go to, you see. And they had them big wooden buckets. Well, you take two buckets with biscuits, and cookies, all molasses cookies. Then you take two pails of beans. They used to try to keep a horse on a scoot to haul that stuff. Sets the stuff right in it. And they'd take that and start, load that, load a horse on the head of it to haul it. And they'd head for out in the woods. Well, when you come to first crew, you took yours out. You went up there. Then the next fella, he'd take it and he'd go to the next crew, you see. Maybe, there’d be a mile, half a mile apart between crews, you see. And they'd come in and we'd always have a fire. That big pole, they'd hang their beans on it over the fire. Warm them up. And biscuits, we used to try to send them so they wouldn't freeze. We'd wrap them, paper and stuff, so they wouldn't freeze. Take them right out of the oven hot. Pack ‘em. But you'd never see nothing coming back. Easy. Clean her right to a licking clean.
They'd have a big gallon can, we call them molasses cans, you know. Well, they'd take that out Monday morning full of molasses. And they'd leave that right there, see. Right out in the woods. Yeah, leave that right there by the fireplace, throw them back in the snow. Then Saturday, when they come out Saturday’s dinner, they'd take everything, take their molasses jacks and all things back, see. Wash them out, clean them up, and refill them. Yep.
Your molasses all come in barrels. There was no goddamn little bucket for molasses or nothing like that. Lard would come in a hundred, hundred and fifty pound barrel. Your vinegar come in barrels. Then, of course, when you ate canned goods, it was all in, you know, crates, the same as you’d buy down here at the store, see.”
John: “Now, these cookees, were they under you? They work for you?”
Dell: “Yeah. They done what I said, they did what you told them. Yeah.”
John: “What was your title? Were you just called the cook?”
Cook and cookees with the day's baking.
Photo courtesy of the Patten Lumbermen's Museum.
Dell: “I was just a cook. I didn't do nothing but just cook, cook, cook. You'd always find one in the bunch (of cookees) who wanted to learn to cook or something, you know see? Well, we'd pick out whatever one who wanted to do that, and we'd call him the ‘head cookee’.”
John: “Would he most likely be someone that in the future would become a cook?”
Dell: “Yeah, see. But he, he looked after all the tables. He didn't have to put a thing on them or nothing, see. He'd just walk around and see that everything was on the table. And if there was anything they wanted, he'd call to the other fellows, bring some biscuits here or whatever was lacking, you see.
You know, a cook, he washed his own dishes. His cooking dishes. Cookees, he didn't want to do with that. I just washed my pans that I cooked in. My baker's sheets and my pans that I mixed my dough and stuff in, you see. And in the woods, we had tin. Big tin pan that would hold, maybe, a pail, a pail and a half of water. Dish pans, they called them, that's what they called them. Old fashioned dish pan.
"The table is always set." ~Dell Turner. Photo of the re-created lumber camp dining room at the Patten Lumbermen's Museum, photo courtesy of John Meader.
And, uh, the other dishes, they had a big sink made out of, uh, out of boards. A wooden sink. They’d have plugs, see, in the lower end of it. And that goddamn sink, they'd, oh, they'd tip it just a little, see. So the water would all run, one end. So when you was all done washing in this sink, go down and pull that plug, out she'd go. Then they’d take and wipe that, all out, dry. Oh, Jesus, you've never seen no dirt nor nothing. No, sir, by God! Jesus, everything had to be wiped out. All the dishes, and when you wash the dishes, you clean your table off. Then you go put your plates all back on the table. Turn them upside down. The table is always set. And then we had them old iron knives and forks. Iron handles. Each place had its knife and fork and a spoon.”
John: “How long was your day?”
Dell: “From two o'clock in the morning until nine at night.”
John: “That's a long day.”
Dell: “Well, I guess it's a long day. No, you said you go out here, you got 75 or 80 men, but you got, uh, three meals a day for that. Well, now I started in while they were eating their supper. I started in mixing biscuits, getting them ready for breakfast, see. Then after I got that bunch all made out, I’d start in mixing up another bunch for their dinner. See? We took them biscuits right hot out of the oven for breakfast. When you get up at two o'clock in the morning they all dragged them fellas about half past four, see. And time, five o'clock for breakfast, was the time they got ready, got in. Them biscuits would be all nice and cooked, you know, nice and brown, hot, like that. When you took out your baker's sheet, you'd put another one in. That's for the dinners, you see. You kept them just in rotation, right around. And at night, they got cold biscuits. They'd get in about half past four, five o'clock, by half past five we'd all be in and undressed and ready for supper. And you'd swing that door open, the cook room would open, and go over and open that camp door and holler “Take her!” Jesus Christ, they'd get like a flock of hogs going, you know. Push and pull.
We had one who would want to kick on it, what he had to eat. So, uh, the boss, when he came in, he sat right there at the end of the table, the first table, see.. And this Christless bastard, he, he's always kicking. This ain't right. That ain't right. Don't do it. This ain't right. So he (the boss) walked right in front of him, (Dell tapped the table like the boss did) “Don't go out in the morning. I want to see you.” Yeah. He hit the tote road, fired him right there. Yes sir.” (1327.097-.103)^9
In the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music article titled Lumbercamp Singing and the Two Traditions, folklorist Sandy Ives noted that “supper would be over as quickly as the cook could clear the men out of the cookroom — no lingering over coffee (or, more likely, tea) and absolutely no conversation. Shut up and eat; then get your hide out and over to the men's part where you belong! That was the rule, which meant that by six or six-thirty the men were back along the deacon seat, and there they stayed until the lights went out at nine o'clock.”^10 The time was often spent listening to others sing or recite stories, while others darned socks, sewed patches, and hung their clothes to dry.
Historically, access to the lumber camps was over rough roads and trails, making passage difficult during the winter when the cutting was done; therefore, lumbermen would go into the woods in late fall and not return home until spring. The cut logs were hauled over frozen roads by teams of horses or Lombard Log Haulers to the banks of nearby lakes and streams. When there was a downhill grade, they would spread hay on the road to add friction to keep the sleds from going too fast. At the landing yards, the logs would be stacked, awaiting the spring thaw. When the rivers opened up they would be floated downstream to various sawmills by men on the spring log drive. Dell told of the dangers entailed by simply hauling the logs over the frozen tote roads:
Lombard Log Hauler.
Photo courtesy of the Patten Lumbermen's Museum.
“Then there was one lake up in there that they call The Freezeout….That’s where they wooded up their log haulers. They burned all wood, made their steam from wood see, instead of coal or anything like that. They used wood. Old Bill Russell and Archie McDonald, all them fellas used to be up in there. Old Archie, he was steerer. He had to sit on top and steer…And we had one little Frenchman. He was steering for Bill, Bill Russell….So he went out across to this ridge where it went for three miles right straight down, right over the prettiest hardwood ridge that you ever looked at in your life. So they hayed it, see, they used to use hay then for brakes on the sleds. If you stopped, you was there, by the Jesus, for nine hours before you could get moving, for that runner would be so hot it would freeze right to the ground…. Got to the top of the ridge and the little fella got off and went down and come back. “All right, let her go,” he says, “She’s all fixed.” He kicked every goddamn bit of hay off the hill….He went down one runner track and when he went down he kicked it [the hay] off. And when he come up, he kicked it off the other one. Now you take ten sets of sleds, one behind the other, with, we’ll say, seventy-five or eighty logs on each set of sleds. They use a four-foot stakes, each bunk had two stakes and a chain to hold them in. Now when you take eight or nine sets of sleds …you got some heft behind that you see, all hauled by one machine….So when old Bill started out, there was no goddamn stopping….And the faster they went, the harder the little French fella would holler, “Let her go! Let her go!” They went clean across that lake before they ever got it stopped, about three feet of snow on that lake ….But he lost his job, but he might have killed every goddamn one of ‘em, you know….No, we used to have a good time up in there, Jesus, Jesus.” (1327.020-021) ^11
The river drive was cold dangerous work. The river drivers wore spiked-soled caulk boots for walking on the logs and they moved the logs about using peaveys and pick-poles. The men often walked and rode the logs, but they often waded the cold waters too. Long logs were cut for lumber, short logs were for pulpwood. The watercraft of choice was the nimble batteau—32 feet long, 4 feet deep, weighing 800-900 pounds.^12 All photos are courtesy of the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum.
In the spring when the ice went out, the logs would be launched into the water to be driven downstream to the mills. Many of the lumbermen put away their axes and saws, put on their caulk boots and grabbed their peaveys and pick poles to work the drive. Not everyone would join the drive, as it was a very different type of work than cutting trees in the winter. Many went home to wives, families and their farms, while others continued on, working the log drives. The spring log drives were cold, wet, and dangerous. The river drivers—standing tall in their spiked boots—often rode the logs through the rapids. The biggest danger associated with the drives were the log jams that the men had to clear. There was often a key log that would have to be removed or released, which would set the entire jam in motion. Sometimes men would be swept away, crushed, or drowned when the jam broke loose. Such incidents were fodder for stories, songs, and poems. Folklorist Sandy Ives studied the lumbermen’s songs and their place in the lumber camps:
The men's part or bunk room with men seated on the deacon seat, where singing and storytelling was performed. Photo courtesy of the Patten Lumbermen's Museum.
“It (singing) was not something used to time the blows of the axes or to keep men moving together while they were rolling or lifting logs on the drive or on the yards or landings….Singing was an off-hours or leisure-time activity for woodsmen. Most leisure time would have been spent in camp in the men's part or bunkroom. Keep in mind the picture of a none-too-large room with double-tiered pole-constructed bunks down each side and a long bench — the deacon seat — running along the foot of the lower bunks. Everything is rough-hewn of round logs (even to the pole floor), lit by kerosene lanterns, probably overheated by the big ram-down wood stoves in the middle of the room, and filled with anywhere from a dozen to seventy-five or eighty men who have put in a hard day's work in the outdoors.” ^13
One of the most popular songs was The Jam at Gerry’s Rock. The ballad tells the story of a crew of seven who had to clear a log jam one Sunday morning. Superstitious about working on a Sunday, the men were reluctant, but the jam had to be cleared before the logs piled up to even more dangerous levels. The men donned their caulked boots and grabbed their peaveys to start loosening the logs. When the jam released, the men were swept away as hundreds of logs suddenly broke loose. Later, all that was found was the battered head of the foreman.^14 While there were many somber and gruesome songs, such as Peter Emberly—the story of a man crushed by logs at a yard, or Guy Reed—who was lost in a log jam, not all dealt with the dangers of the trade. Some, such as The Plain Golden Band, told of love and heartbreak, while others such as The Lumberman’s Alphabet were humorous. Many old favorites such as The Jam at Gerry’s Rock were of unknown origin; others had known composers, like woodsman-songmaker Joe Scott who wrote both Guy Reed and The Plain Golden Band.^15
Everyone was expected to provide entertainment in the evening, but not everyone could sing. Some simply recited stories or poems. One such poem is The Unknown Pine Log Rider:
The Unknown Pine Log Rider
Painting of a river driver found at the Patten Lumbermen's Museum, Patten, Maine. Photo courtesy of John Meader.
With the South Branch roaring full to the brim,
They harried the logs like blood-hounds grim,
Those sackers swart of Glazier's crew
Were out to bring that big drive through,
But Joe Muldoon was caught below,
And tangled fast near Split Rock's flow.
At the ugly snarl of that lip of death
Those husky drivers held their breath,
And all felt sure that none could save
Joe Muldoon from that swirling grave,
When from the opposite bank there sprang
A stranger to the Glazier gang.
With a careless grace and a dauntless flair
He spurred to the water's trumpet blare,
His charger, a reeling log of pine,
His course, that stream of spume and brine,
His ringing spurs, sharp spikes of steel
On leathern sole and rough-shod heel.
With a nimble poise from his balanced pole,
He steadied the log's wild surging roll,
And held command with a master will,
By practised art and subtle skill,
While down that foaming stream he sped
Straight to the helpless wretch ahead.
With a crouching swoop and a vise-like grip
He swung Muldoon to his bony hip,
And held him there while the log he trod
With strength and calmness of a god,
Nor heeded he behind his back
The rushing roaring timber pack.
Through the flying foam of that flume of hell
He clung to his reeling charger well,
And spurned the hissing ghouls beneath,
And smote them in their milk-white teeth,
Then swirling onward straight and true,
The saviour of Muldoon sluiced through.
With a mighty sweep of his strong right hand
He hurtled Muldoon upon the land,
Then surging on was lost to view
From all the gaping Glazier crew.
He rode with Death—he won the game—
Then disappeared and left no name.^16
Cathy’s notes:
I remember first visiting the Lumbermen’s Museum with my parents and brother. During the 1960s, we often stayed with my cousins’ family at their camp on Lower Shin Pond, ten miles from Patten. Exploring the Museum recently with John took me right back to those happy summer times. Unexpectedly, I also felt forlorn. As I stood in front of the Lombard Log Hauler, I imagined my grandfather photographing the same steam-powered machine. I wanted us to be standing there now, together.
Gus’s postcards #57 and #193 of the original museum building circa 1963 and late 1960s. The final shot of the building was taken by John in 2023.
John’s notes:
With stories, songs, images, and artifacts, the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum took me into a past I’ve only heard about in Grampy’s [Dell’s] stories. When I was at the museum I felt my grandfather’s presence. In my mind, he was the cook in that cook house. At the same time I also saw Gus in myself, taking photos, looking for the best angles. And looking at Cathy, I remember wondering how we would ever pull all these pieces into what you’re reading now. This site pulled together two gentlemen who both have come to mean a lot to me. I like to imagine them here together.
Not afraid of hard work, independent, and always ready to share a few stories and tall tales, Gus and Dell—our grandfathers—were kindred spirits that never met. But one can imagine them sitting down in the shade for a good chat and enjoying each other’s company, sharing their stories of the Maine North Woods. While Dell was cooking in lumber camps, Gus was a Maine Guide, taking sports into the woods to hunt and fish. Dell loved to fish and would have relished Gus’s tales while simultaneously itching to share his own big fish stories. It makes one wonder who would have gotten a word in edgewise.
Images of the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum. All color photographs courtesy John Meader, historic photos courtesy of the museum.
Special thanks:
To the Penobscot Marine Museum and Photo Archivist Kevin Johnson for image use, preserving the Phillips Collection, and continued support; the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum and Curator Rhonda Brophy for welcoming us to Patten and for sharing stories and details of the Museum's history and exhibits; Pamela Dean, Phd. for her expertise as project scholar; Ben Meader for technical support and hosting; John Meader for photography; the late Mary Jane Phillips Smith, Gus’s daughter, for years of protecting and sharing Gus’s legacy; and to our grandfathers, Dell Turner and Augustus Phillips, for sharing their love and the stories of their lives with us.
Sources, Notes, Further Reading and Watching
^1 John Meader photo taken at the Moosehead Marine Museum, Greenville, Maine.
^2 Lumber Camp Food | Maine State Museum, accessed August 15, 2024.
^3 About Us - Patten Lumbermen's Museum, accessed February 7, 2024.
^4 Augustus Phillips, handwritten entries in spiral notebook, (Gus’s orders and sales notebooks 1966). collection of author Cathy Jewitt.
^5 Mary Jane Phillips Smith, personal recollections about her father Augustus Phillips, told to her niece Cathy Jewitt.
^6 Rhonda Brophy, Patten Lumbermen’s Museum Curator and Secretary and member of Board of Directors, interview by John Meader and Cathy Jewitt, August 31,2023, in person.
^7 John T. Meader, Dell Turner: The Stories of His Life (Orono, Maine: Northeast Folklore Society, Northeast Folklore XXVII 1988).
^8 Original recording of interview with Dell Turner by John Meader on March 17, 1980, Northeast Archives Accession #1327, catalog page 18, Folger Library University of Maine at Orono; Dell Turner, The Stories of his Life, Northeast Folklore XXVII, 1988, page 25.
^9 Original recording of interview with Dell Turner by John Meader on March 21, 1980, Northeast Archives Accession #1327, catalog pages 97-103 Folger Library University of Maine at Orono; Dell Turner, The Stories of his Life, Northeast Folklore XXVII, 1988, pages 26-28.
^10 Edward D. Ives, “Lumbercamp Singing and the Two Traditions,” (Canadian Journal for Traditional Music, 1977).
^11 Original recording of interview with Dell Turner by John Meader on March 17, 1980, Northeast Archives Accession #1327, catalog pages 20-21 Folger Library University of Maine at Orono; Dell Turner, The Stories of his Life, Northeast Folklore XXVII, 1988, pages 35-36.
^12 Eric Hendrickson, Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument, (Charleston, South Carolina: History Press, 2020), p.94.
^13 Edward D. Ives, “Lumbercamp Singing and the Two Traditions,” (Canadian Journal for Traditional Music, 1977).
^14 Edward D. Ives, Folksongs of New Brunswick, (Fredericton, New Brunswick: Goose Lane Editions Ltd., 1989) pp. 26-29.
^15 Edward “Sandy” D. Ives, Joe Scott: The Woodsman-Songmaker, (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1978).
^16 Edward D. Ives, Folksongs of New Brunswick, (Fredericton, New Brunswick: Goose Lane Editions Ltd., 1989) pp. 177-178.
Recommended reading/watching:
Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, The Penobscot Man, Juniper Press, 1978, original 1904.
Alfred Hempstead, The Penobscot Boom and the Development of the West Branch of the Penobscot River for Log Driving 1825-1931, DownEast Books, 1975.
Eric Hendrickson, Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument, Charleston, South Carolina: History Press, 2020.
Edward Dawson "Sandy" Ives | NBLE, Edward Dawson “Sandy” Ives,” New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia.
Edward D. Ives, Joe Scott: The Woodsman-Songmaker, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1978.
Edward D. Ives, Folksongs of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick: Goose Lane Editions Ltd., 1989.
Edward D. Ives, Wilmot McDonald at the Miramichi Folksong Festival, Northeast Folklore XXXVI, 2002.
John T. Meader, Dell Turner, The Stories of His Life, Northeast Folklore XXVII, 1988.
The Northern, a publication of the Great Northern Paper Company, April 1921-October 1928.
Robert Pike, Tall Trees, Tough Men, New York: Norton and Co., 1967.
Neil Rolde, The Interrupted Forest, A History of Maine’s Wildlands, Gardiner: Tilbury House, 2001.
David C. Smith, A History of Lumbering in Maine 1861-1960, Orono, Maine: University of Maine Press, 1972.
Matt Wheeler, Kosti Ruohomaa and Maine’s Bygone Log Drives with Matt Wheeler, Online talk and photos by the Penobscot Marine Museum’s Digital Collections Curator.
Partners for the Postcards from Gus blog:
