What
knowledge and skills will Uncle Cyrus need as a bolt-cutter?
In 1894 a huge fire swept over Whatcom County. It left dead fir and
cedar stumps in its path. The fir
stumps rotted quickly, but after the burned bark of the cedar stump was cut
away, the wood inside made excellent shingles that were used as roofing
material. Shingle mill workers had important jobs, because everybody wanted
roofs made of shingles.
The
Bolt-Cutter’s Job:
The
“Bolt-Cutters” were paid by the shingle mill company to cut down the
burned cedar stumps and then split the tall stumps into shingle bolts. Many
settlers, whose cedar trees burned in the fire, earned money by splitting the
stumps into shingle bolts. They then
transported the shingle bolts to the shingle mill. The shingle mill paid the settlers enough money to help support
their families. Some of the settlers
established their own “cross road shingle mill” and sold their cedar shingles
to homeowners and businesses.
When
a bolt cutter found a cedar log, he first trimmed the branches off.
Then he
dragged his seven-foot crosscut saw across it to divide it into sections. He then split the log’s sections into
bolts, by swinging a wooden maul against a wedge. The bolts were about fifty inches long, and narrow enough to be
handled easily. If a bolt cutter worked 10 hours a day, he might cut and split
one cord of shingle bolts.
Next, the bolt cutter had to clear a path out
to the skid road. He loaded the shingle bolts onto a
large wooden sled called a “stone boat”.
Then
a team of horses dragged the stone boat down the path to the skid road, and
from there to a small gage steel railroad. On the railroad were some large “tramcars”. The
bolt cutter stacked the cedar bolts onto the tramcars. The tramcars were 16 feet long by 4 feet
wide. Each tramcar held about two cords of bolts (each cord consisted of 28
bolts). A heavy post at each corner of the tramcar held the shingle bolts in
place so they wouldn’t fall off the tram.
If the bolt cutter didn’t own his own team of
oxen or horses, he would have to pay someone else to haul the bolts to the mill
on the tramcars. If he did own his own team of oxen or horses, he would
transport the cedar bolts to the shingle mills, himself. A big horse could pull two tramcars loaded
with bolts. There was a brake on the tramcars so that the cars wouldn’t run
into the horses as they were going downhill.
Once in a while, when the brakes failed, there were serious accidents
and horses as well as people were hurt or killed.
Once
the shingle bolts reached the shingle mill, a cable was pulled down from the
second story of the mill, and hooked
into a large hook on the tramcar. Then
a steam-driven donkey engine pulled the tramcar up an incline to the second
story of the mill.
Other
Shingle Mill Workers’ Jobs:
The cut-off saw operator
took the bolt from the tramcar and placed it on a table. The table moved the
bolt into the large saw until it was cut into three blocks. If the edges needed
trimming, he trimmed them. Next, the
shingle weaver operated the shingle saw.
The “Shingle
Weaver” was the worker who split the blocks into shingles that were thin,
light and strong. The shingles shed rain and
snow and they lasted a long time, so they made perfect roofing material. The “shingle weaver” worked up on a
platform, shoving his single cedar block back and forth through his horizontal
saw. The machine moved the block of cedar
back and forth between 45 and 50 times a minute. The shingle weaver then ran
the uncut edge of each shingle through a trimmer saw.
The “Knot Sawyer” was the worker who
swiftly, carefully, and skillfully split away the knots in the wood. The Knot Sawyer received high pay for his
skill.
The “Packer” swiftly packed the thin
shingles into bundles of 25. Then the
bundles were loaded onto a tramcar and pushed to the dry kiln. In the dry kiln, the shingles were loaded
onto moveable racks with wheels, and pushed into the dry kiln where steam was
run through the bundles to dry them out.
Image
Credit: Microsoft ClipArt Gallery
Photo of crosscut
saw was taken at the Lynden Pioneer
Museum (exits project site)
Photo of team is
courtesy of the Whatcom Museum of
History and Art (exits project site)