Finding A New Way To Get Killed

Everyone knows logging is one of the most dangerous professions. Lumbermen work amid falling trees, using powerful equipment in rugged, remote conditions. In one recent year, government statistics ranked logging as the second most perilous of all occupations, surpassed only by another traditional Northland pursuit: commercial fishing.

If the statistics were not enough to convince you, a casual exploration through back issues of local newspapers will illustrate the sacrifices that workers in the timber industry have made through the years. Headline after headline tell of injuries and deaths in the lumber camps of northern Wisconsin.

Take one of the Apostle Islands as an example: Stockton Island, in the old days known to many as Presque Isle. The Bayfield Press of Aug. 20, 1909 reported,

Theodore Kerwin, of Duluth, was killed Wednesday at the camp of the Schroeder Lumber Co. on Presque Isle. He was standing near the landing and in some unknown manner a log fell, bringing several more with it which knocked the man down, rolling over him and crushing out his life.

Some years later, in a particularly poignant incident, a young man named Hugh Perin was hit by a falling branch and killed on the same island. Not only was Perin, of Russell Township, only 21 years old, but the accident took place in his first week on the job. When told this story, one old-timer from Russell recalled that another Perin boy was also killed in a logging-related accident: crushed when a sawmill turned over on him.

Winter logging on the shore of Lake Superior

The particular hazards of island logging, and the lack of access to emergency care, finally got to be too much for the men who worked on Stockton. In January, 1913, the Press reported a near-insurrection in the Schroeder Co. camp:

One of the men employed in the camp of the Schroeder Lumber Co. on Presque Isle arrived in Bayfield last Saturday after a most hazardous trip by water, land, and ice to report the injuries received by two of the lumbermen last Friday employed in a logging operations on the island. The man came, hoping to secure medical services to return to the islands and administer to the injured men and attend a case of sickness which was reported as smallpox, but which later proved to be nothing so serious.

Conditions are such that no boat could get out of the local harbor Saturday afternoon as ice was making too rapidly and as a result no doctor could reach the island. The first of the week, however, Dr. Dell Andrus, of Ashland, came over and went to the island where he found one man suffering with a double fracture of an arm and another with a broken leg, both caused by the giving way of supports in beneath skids, logs striking the men injured.

During the past two days many of the men employed on the island have given up their jobs and came in to town, not caring to work in a place where, if injured, it would be difficult to secure medical attention. Fourteen of the crew came over yesterday, in many places passing over ice which cracked and sank beneath their weight. The men stated that nearly 250 men are at work on the island, but that many will undoubtedly quit in a few days, fearing some mishap, similar to that of their companions, might befall them.

If working in the woods were not dangerous enough, now and then lumberjacks found ways to add to the carnage in their off-duty hours. The Bayfield Press of January 27, 1911 reports one such incident:

Friends in Bayfield of John Gordon received word that he had been killed in a street fight at Mellen, Wis., late last Saturday night. A. J. McAdams, of Superior, was also killed in the same battle, and Martin Miller, a lumberjack, is being held by the authorities, charged with the double killing.

Gordon and McAdams and several other men came to town Saturday from Finch Brothers camp about ten miles from Mellen. Late Saturday night in a saloon, Gordon became involved in an argument with a bartender. One of the men, so it is said, reached across the bar and struck the bartender in the face, knocking him down.

The men were then all ejected from the saloon. Miller, it is claimed, took the bartender's part and with the latter attempted to "double up" on the man who did the slugging inside.

Gordon and McAdams attempted to interfere whereupon Miller, picking up a big club in the street, struck McAdams across the head and then assaulted Gordon with the weapon. McAdams dropped unconscious to the street and died almost immediately. Gordon also died within a few minutes after the blow was struck.

Sure sounds like Martin Miller was a man you would not want to mess with.

Unquestionably, though, the most bizarre ending for any Northwoods logger had to be the 1912 death of John Kobus, in a ship's smokestack at a Bayfield dock. As the Press reported,

Engineer Supple, of the steamer Superior, had a very strange experience and a sensation that he was "hearing things" Wednesday morning, when at five o'clock he opened the firebox preparatory to steaming up for the day's work. Three times he hesitated before throwing in the coal, feeling sure that he heard a man's voice nearby. He went outside and looked around but not seeing anyone decided to get busy which he did by throwing several shovels of coal onto the fire.

At this moment the voice was again heard and as Mr. Supple stepped out on the dock he discerned the figure of a man leaning against the smokestack. He called to him to get down, but received no answer. Efforts were then made to assist the apparently half- frozen man to get down, whereupon quickly removing his coat and vest, the stranger jumped into the smokestack, landing on the boiler some distance below.

Mr. Supple, realizing that no human being could live long in such a place, rushed onto the boat and shut off all drafts. The stack was removed and the man, nearly smothered from gas and coal smoke, was taken to the Bayfield Light and Power Co. plant and a physician called.

When consciousness was restored, the man gave his name as John Kobus, aged 52, and stated that he had worked in Hines' camp near Ashland 12 days. He arrived in Bayfield Tuesday night and during the storm found his way to the boat. The last he remembers, he was trying to keep warm.

Not surprisingly, the next week's paper carried the news of Kobus's subsequent death in an Ashland hospital. Though his last words were not recorded, one can't help thinking that they may well have been, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

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Originally published in The ECHO,
Jan.-Feb. 2009