Latah County Oral History Collection

Sam Schrager: You're well. Oh.

Nina Seybold: You're welcome.

Sam Schrager: So how do you remember what we see? What was he like? Is what you remember?

Nina Seybold: Well, he seemed pretty good. The family did. And they had a house where the people could stop and eat their lunch from the road. You know, travelers. Yes. That's right. Chuck and Roy and Mary.

Sam Schrager: So people liked him and didn't. Oh, yeah.

Nina Seybold: Oh, yeah. Yeah, they were in. And they were nice people. They were.

Sam Schrager: They were. All right. You ever know any any, Ever hear about, any of the the jokes that Joe played and anything like that? I heard it, I heard he use a pretty tough guy himself.

Henry Benson: Oh, he wasn't too bad. Not you know. Oh.

Sam Schrager: Well, no, I heard everybody that I spoke to says he was a nice guy.

Henry Benson: A good you to know.

Nina Seybold: Yes, he was, he was, he really was. You know, they had Mary and Jack and John was three for me. I was at.

Henry Benson: Duke at 90.

Nina Seybold: Mary and Joe.

Henry Benson: Yeah.

Or George or.

You 100%.

Nina Seybold: Oh yes. He had there were, there were nice families and they had every, they were well-liked among the other human lives around there. You know, there's settlers, you know, who went to school together.

Henry Benson: went to school with Mary and Roy and Chuck.

Sam Schrager: What were the kids like? Those. Those boys?

Henry Benson: Well, you know, when they went to school, they were just. All right, now I can say that.

Nina Seybold: Oh, they were.

Henry Benson: The only thing that I can.

Sam Schrager: Know what.

Nina Seybold: I know? And, you know, I mean, adult would come to school one morning and there was a pilot.

Henry Benson: Who I would actually turn let.

Sam Schrager: Oh, tell him tell it again. I'm sure you did tell.

Nina Seybold: Tales of some other meeting rooms. Have some. Someone they called a lot like neural logs. I laughed and then they they were tired. Bony ties as far. I was trying to get that hand up there and, here and all of that commoner stuff and all picked up. All right.

Henry Benson: Oh, the door knob.

Nina Seybold: Over the door to come and see you. So we come. Then the teacher came, and then.

Henry Benson: Then George Potter did Potter with the teacher. Yeah. And he refused to go open the door. Yeah, he stayed out of power and go.

Nina Seybold: He almost all of the teachers stayed at our house. It wouldn't stay in place, Yeah. Why was that? What was? Well, it was just.

Henry Benson: It it was a Halloween deal. Oh, okay. What what what they did get, you know, do play a joke or do something bad.

Nina Seybold: Boy, they got the Dickens, right?

Henry Benson: Okay. You that well.

Nina Seybold: On the folks in Washington?

Henry Benson: Well, I know they didn't.

Nina Seybold: Didn't. But anyhow. And here's a joke.

Sam Schrager: So what was what was special about about your house that the teachers, stayed?

Nina Seybold: Well, I don't know, but they I would like to stay at our house, and the teacher did, and of course, we had room for them and and, then we we had good food, and that's what they liked.

Henry Benson: And and a place to stay and.

Nina Seybold: A place to stay. Now what were.

Sam Schrager: You going to say about those kids, about the Wells boys. And you started laughing.

Henry Benson: well it was a Halloween party. She that what it all created could be.

Sam Schrager: Oh is that,

Henry Benson: Would they done that for a joke that did it on Halloween time?

Sam Schrager: Yeah, but were you going to tell me another story about them? Was there something else? You started to laugh when. And then you said she was telling it over again, you know, what were you going to say? Were you going to talk another story about those boys?

Henry Benson: Well, I thought the world,

Nina Seybold: You know, they were all right.

Sam Schrager: Oh, I yeah, I, I, I've heard that they were good too.

Henry Benson: You better like.

Nina Seybold: Yes. And sure.

Sam Schrager: I just wonder what they were like because there were so few, Negroes around, you know, in this country at all.

Henry Benson: Yeah, not at them.

Nina Seybold: They know.

Henry Benson: And I was going to tell you about, Joe Wells, his wife. Now, he called her Lou. She. And she'd go in there and make biscuits every morning and cook them hot biscuit for her. Man.

Nina Seybold: Oh, boy. She was something.

Henry Benson: yes.

Nina Seybold: And he had a daughter, Mary. He was two. But I'll tell you, they were good cooks.

Henry Benson: But old Lou. No, I tell you, she was wonderful. But what I was going to tell, you know what I was going to tell you now, you know, she used to to snooze, I guess. I guess, I don't know, it had little can about probably that big round shape and she'd have a steak on it and and she dipped that thing in there and she'd take it and put it in your mouth here.

And you could.

Nina Seybold: See. I can see here that dream that you, So.

Henry Benson: And then when she ran out of that snooze, well, then she had a big flag of tobacco about on that big long. And she had that in her dresser drawer. And then when she'd wanted to. Then she got done with that snooze. She then she'd go in there and take a big bite of that. I she you do that many or many a time.

Sam Schrager: Did she have a chair? This chair she like to sit in and rock in when she was a, chewing tobacco?

Henry Benson: No, no, she's out there work and busy work and working like.

Nina Seybold: And I'm the only place you only you know.

Henry Benson: All right. Yes.

Nina Seybold: And then they when they get there, you know, do work sometimes on the highway in their own. They were right there. They plenty have building homes going in the house and we all of us and and they would all have to live. We had that old schoolhouse and I guess it going down.

Henry Benson: Yeah. That log schoolhouse, they moved it off and up there. Well, we used to go to school down there were mainly down there on the flat.

Nina Seybold: Yeah, down there on the flat.

Sam Schrager: Oh. Why did they call that the well, schoolhouse.

Henry Benson: Well that the only schoolhouse we had to engage.

Nina Seybold: With another school.

Sam Schrager: Well, I mean, why they call it the Wells Schoolhouse? Because he did he build it himself.

Henry Benson: Was it my dad and Joe and and and Anderson built that schoolhouse built there.

Nina Seybold: Yeah.

Henry Benson: And with the school there. Good. They you needed one? Yeah. We only had four months of school. She. Them they.

Nina Seybold: Could come. And then too, they had Helen Church in their school too. And they had a bench rod like that and that was her out something at Leland. And pray.

Henry Benson: All.

Nina Seybold: The a no no no for sending you know and they put that away again you know that's that's how the church that church they had for that.

Sam Schrager: what was it, what kind of a church was it?

Nina Seybold: What does well, there is no, sir. There was different nationalities at.

Henry Benson: That at Indira United at that schoolhouse. Moved.

Nina Seybold: Yeah. Well, yes, but I say it was still there and we were going to church.

Henry Benson: You know.

Sam Schrager: Did you have, much to do with, when they were building the railroad? Crews were in there. Did you, did you, sell them food or anything like that? Did you ever have any run ins with them? The people working in the railroad?

Henry Benson: I'll tell you one thing. Mom used to cook for that bridge crew and let them go. That put in them culverts on that railroad there. Yeah. And we carried lunch, you know, very lunch and.

Nina Seybold: And made it up in a nice big time. And he got a one in the side. And here we'd love going up there to him. Yeah.

Henry Benson: And that no fool. And boy I tell that on the fact.

Nina Seybold: My mother was very good cook and she just picked that up. So they had only one of the, you know, it to. yeah. Those days was quite old days and just don't seem like the whole that's.

Sam Schrager: All that long ago.

Nina Seybold: You know. And don't.

Henry Benson: You cook. Oh.

Nina Seybold: How long were you back? All right.

Henry Benson: Yeah, right. Years back.

Sam Schrager: Well, how did your how did your folks, get by through those hard times?

Henry Benson: Well, the they had page and they had stock. We milked and we planned a garden and then I thought we'd he'd butcher for meat. So I had it all cleared up. Some of this smoke, some of it was dried, solid and dried.

Nina Seybold: Many even. I had cold and dry chipped beef. We had them of mama and. Okay. But you know, as when we were settling in, it was different people, different nationalities. All would come in time and sell all around the country and all the country, you know. So, you know, that'd be people moving in from different countries, in different places.

Sam Schrager: There were sure a lot of people from Norway around there.

Henry Benson: You about your life.

Nina Seybold: That was and that was really, bing bing bing bing bing.

Henry Benson: She there's Bert now. They were Norwegians and then that, we were Norwegians and then there was halted. There were. No we didn't.

Nina Seybold: Want a Swanson's to.

Henry Benson: Swanson's was sweet. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Burke's.

Nina Seybold: Well, there's a quite a bunch.

Sam Schrager: There was other Norwegians too.

Henry Benson: Oh, yeah. Yes. It was really Marlborough. that that then these have been so long.

Sam Schrager: Oh, yeah.

Henry Benson: I think I just remember all of it. But be different.

Sam Schrager: Do you. Do you know why the, why so many of the Norwegians came to that area? Because what do you know why that was? That they all got together there, that group.

Henry Benson: Well, they'd come from different in the old country. She hear this country.

Nina Seybold: Different places from back in there?

Sam Schrager: Yeah he did. Did they know. Did the families know each other from back there or just when they got.

Henry Benson: Well, of when they got together and homesteaded and got a place to live. They got acquainted with each other.

Nina Seybold: And then they built a church number seven, a church. And we I went to that. That's where we were, that Queen clambake.

Henry Benson: Well, 90 owners say this now you remember it when the old church used to sit down here.

Nina Seybold: That's what I'm referring to.

Henry Benson: Your room. Yes. And they moved that up to do, you know, after they got to that down there, they tore it down, moved it to dairy and dairy shipping and dairy. Right. Pretty cheap.

Nina Seybold: And they used to, make their own caskets.

Henry Benson: Yeah. Oh, Martin Magnuson, Martin nation. Did you know him?

Sam Schrager: Yeah, I've heard about him. Yeah. Arthur.

Henry Benson: Martin. Mac Magnuson.

Sam Schrager: what about him?

Henry Benson: Well.

Nina Seybold: He made the caskets just to fit. You know.

Henry Benson: He made a casket for his mother.

Nina Seybold: And then as other people passed away, then we made some.

Henry Benson: Rankin wasn't away. Well, that that then Hansen's up there. That up there on the other side of Dewey. There. They used to build them cash. Yeah, that's.

Nina Seybold: What I say then. Bill.

Sam Schrager: Who? Who is this? Now? The hatchet heads.

Henry Benson: Out, and they Addison Miller Place, and they built caskets up there. Wooden casket.

Nina Seybold: And then they paint them and take some real nice. You know, we had an ice cream. You're on the fence around some. I mean, up here don't have anything coming in at that time. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Did,

Nina Seybold: And then Bill come on church. church too.

Sam Schrager: Did you? Didn't many people die besides the old people that did?

Henry Benson: Well, no, not not too many. not like, not like to do today. No, no, but what I was going to show about Martin age now. Yeah, well, he, he had a house there and he had a place up there and his brother was up in there and, you know, she fell out of bed, died on the floor.

I can't.

Nina Seybold: Yeah.

Henry Benson: And then what I was going to show, you know, that. And, Martin and all what you name got that beat market down there.

Nina Seybold: Well, yes. And, and.

Henry Benson: He used to cut out up there on that pond. He had a pond made built up there at his place here. And he used to cut ice here. And they had a place that down there. Good. There. They had a meat market there. I didn't see.

Nina Seybold: Them.

Henry Benson: And dip haul ice down to their and put it in there and cover it up with. And then whenever the icebox there got kind of low and then you'd have to clean that sort of stuff and get that ice up overhead there. I worked there for a while. so.

Sam Schrager: You know, Arthur Burke told me that he used to bring in the cattle for Magnuson, for the camps.

Henry Benson: That's right, that's right.

Sam Schrager: Go out, get him.

Henry Benson: Yeah.

Nina Seybold: Got a lot of cattle to ride.

Henry Benson: And they. Well, they had everybody had a bunch of cattle. Know.

Sam Schrager: where do they graze?

Henry Benson: And mostly just out there in their own place of business. There were over there.

Nina Seybold: That make corrals. Anyway.

Henry Benson: Keep crew. No, they didn't have no corrals, man. They they went up to.

Nina Seybold: They didn't have so many of the milk cows was because there used to.

Henry Benson: Have well, the milk cow they were taking care of different. Yeah. And then young occurred.

Sam Schrager: Well how long did it take. your parents to clear up and get that going.

Henry Benson: Brother? I tell you that, son, that's for sure. I had there was a lot of timber, not timber. But then, dad, he went around and chopped sugar around them trees. There she. Yes. And then they died. She. And then that. In the spring, every spring we used to have to go out there and pick up that bark of that field there that day.

It no fuller.

Nina Seybold: And some of them may have been trees us just saw through them go through. And that was kind of a big.

Sam Schrager: Job.

Nina Seybold: To.

Henry Benson: yeah. Picked up and then.

Nina Seybold: It reviewed the way it was and, and your hand in this, it was. And something had to do to begin with and work out pretty nice. Everybody seemed to work together and kind of just help each other. Okay.

Sam Schrager: Do you think the people helped each other a lot?

Henry Benson: They did that. That damned age when one of them had to have some help with. Then the other one come and help.

Nina Seybold: That and, another thing too. One of them women have a baby here. Wouldn't be the whole and neighborhood run, come and all kinds of food and share with it. But just tell him that, well, I can see that, from the from their house. That's nice. Oh, everything. You can think of them way. Okay. Running.

Sam Schrager: Well, did it take those trees a long time to fall. To fall over? Once you bought, once you girdle them.

Henry Benson: And then you got cut out rigmarole on them cheap and not take about a year before they die off to got kill. Yeah. And then when they started dying, well, then the bark fell off. Had bark on it about two inches, three inches. Many, many a time I helped pick up that dog on bark that fell in the field there, where dad used to have to plow.

Nina Seybold: Yep.

Sam Schrager: Well, what did what did they plant then? What did your parents plant once they got it cleared?

Henry Benson: Well, we an oak.

Sam Schrager: Right away this way.

Henry Benson: And they just showed it by hand and cheater had a shack and a bucket. And they'd show that she.

Nina Seybold: Didn't have a thing with. And do you remember, had any of them, Timothy.

Henry Benson: Well, do you remember I went down to Apple to get that long sheet hard on them cheaters. And I went down there and got that it was on a wheelbarrow rake, but it about ten foot long, wide. and they put your Timothy sheet in there. And then he grown and she death. And he had to take it forever.

Every time he made it round.

Sam Schrager: So he knew where he was.

Henry Benson: That's right.

Nina Seybold: Yeah. On that finding a website. And then when I got up from my level, cut it down. You know someone, it was 90.

Henry Benson: And then they did have a site and and then another rig there. They call it a cradle. They had it. You did it when the green come up. And then the youth had gone by it with that green and leaves and stuff that time didn't have no binder and twine.

Sam Schrager: And what did they use the cradle for?

Henry Benson: To make them just like a shock, just like a binder would when I tied up.

Sam Schrager: Did you make those by hand, those cradles?

Henry Benson: No, no, no, but it had prongs on it about that long. And when that got pulled, then it had dumped she. And then they'd take that stuff off the body of that stuff to the dump and make it tight.

Sam Schrager: Where did it tools come from that you parents use. Where did they get them from. Did they buy them.

Henry Benson: Oh well guess you went to a different place to buy them cradle. I think Arthur Burke had the first one.

Nina Seybold: That's the first one I remember that.

Henry Benson: Yes. Sure. You get. Yeah.

Nina Seybold: And then they help each other. And if they didn't have it and on it you know they were going to new. And that's a new kind of feeling having somebody. And then you could borrow music.

Henry Benson: I don't know maybe he built it. Maybe old man Burke built it. His dad.

Nina Seybold: You know, he was pretty good. You betcha he was all right. He was in been there longer than we had some, you know.

Henry Benson: He had a granary down there. She in. He made a lock on that thing on that granary door. And he had it that, you know, just like this sheriff that had it. But you got to know her, to hook it, to open the door.

Sam Schrager: So, you couldn't get in unless you knew how to.

Henry Benson: That right.

Sam Schrager: From.

Henry Benson: That, right? He you could take it in there and then turn around. So many other. And how many turned you turn it open the door. Otherwise you couldn't get in there.

At all. Remember? Arthur? Dad.

Nina Seybold: He was pretty handy. He was a worker, too.

Henry Benson: Yeah.

Nina Seybold: Yeah, he liked to be quiet. No man to.

Sam Schrager: Did he work? Did did he keep working until he was really old?

Henry Benson: He went out and grubbed all that placed on their roster to live. And right today.

Nina Seybold: Yes, sir. In Jefferson print. And then last minute.

Henry Benson: He'd go out there and rub it with the gravel and go above the brush and the stumps and different things.

Sam Schrager: Is that is is that not their home? Is that the same as their home place, the place where you write.

Henry Benson: Today right down there below Hartridge place?

Sam Schrager: Right. That's the same. That's their home.

Henry Benson: Place at the home plate? You betcha. Yeah.

Nina Seybold: Yes. And North, this country here to their face. Different world. Sure.

Sam Schrager: But it's interesting because that's never going to be again. That's no.

Nina Seybold: Never.

Sam Schrager: Well, I want to ask you about, what Arthur was like as a boy. Did you ever. Did you spend much time with him?

Henry Benson: Oh, I used to go hunting with him.

Nina Seybold: All that when you. When you have to go to school together.

Henry Benson: That's right.

Nina Seybold: Yeah. Oh, yes.

Sam Schrager: What was he like that he was. He, he was a hard worker. Do you like the way I, you know.

Henry Benson: No. You know.

Nina Seybold: He worked like he was a worker. We all had to. There was nothing fooling around, no play around.

Henry Benson: And another thing I'm going to say, you know, that every fall they'd get a lot of wood. That is black pine timber. And he'd go out there and run across culture and show them that wood. And splitter carry and.

Sam Schrager: For the fire.

Henry Benson: Yes, sure. And his mother now, she used to we used to go fishing in Arthur and I did. She had a coffee grinder up there on them old timers from the war. And whenever we got back where she'd make coffee for.

Nina Seybold: Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Where do you go fishing?

Henry Benson: Down on the. On the river down there. We walked to Martin Magnuson Field and down. It's about three mile down north, Neal there, down the river.

So far tonight, we've been down there many times.

Sam Schrager: What did you catch?

Henry Benson: Mostly trout. Really nice trout.

Nina Seybold: Oh my gosh, they were nice. Heavens. Whatever.

Henry Benson: Beautiful you mentioned nowadays anymore.

Sam Schrager: You doing that in those creeks. No, no.

Henry Benson: But that wonderful stream. Little part like, Yeah.

Nina Seybold: Yeah, that was good. You really? When they came, all those people came there. There was. Yeah. Start from the bottom. No hospitals. No, no, no, nothing like that. They have they have a doctor one sentence handed to me around where I from, I couldn't quite remember. But I know you saved your life.

Sam Schrager: Yeah. Would you tell me that again now? He he he had pneumonia. What? What did the doctors say?

Nina Seybold: He had pneumonia. But he said to mother, he said, now he says I'll come back this evening. We'll know what, 12:00 tonight. If he would deliver, we'll go see. He was laying there like you sleep for me, you know. So we almost cried and we sat in there and talk and come o'clock, come a little report. Come, I can see me.

And he looked at his watch. And you walked in there and then began to wake up. Right. He said it. We'll go one way or the other. But and then they went the right way.

Henry Benson: Right. You know, that's one time it looked like I have looking angels right?

Sam Schrager: Say, did you know Marx? Marx at all? Because Arthur said that he was around there, and he then the old, that old Indian, there was an old. He said the Indians came through, came through the country. Did you see the Indians when you were young? Sure.

Nina Seybold: Yeah. And then you travel to the road to go.

Henry Benson: They used to come by hide and stuff by hide. Hide, hide. Indian they needed.

Nina Seybold: Hi, hi.

Henry Benson: Hi, hi, hi. Any kind of a hide you had? If you said it, give it to him. Do right away.

Nina Seybold: And there's quite a man who used to come and invented the required thing going through the country. But they were harmless. I didn't.

Henry Benson: Know they.

Nina Seybold: But not everybody.

Sam Schrager: did you spend any time with them?

Henry Benson: No. When they come, come over there and we got to hide. We get this or get that. Well, then we'd give it to them.

Sam Schrager: They traded.

Henry Benson: no. We just turn it over to do no good. Do it. Just that don't happen. Yeah.

Yeah. Used to come through there about every every spring. Careful. And then another thing I want to tell you too. Then Indians used to go up there too, on the other side of hell. And right there on that, on that red June and dig that camp. Sure, whatever they call it, they made flour out of that stuff.

Sam Schrager: They used to dig it on the other side of Hilmar.

Henry Benson: Yeah, indeed. On that flat up there on that side, above that is. oh. Let's see you all. oh. I can't hardly think of it. Name? No. Anyway, they had their spring up there. They used to call it the Iron Range. You could go in there and get water. Supposed to be that. Just about like that.

spring up there in Montana.

Sam Schrager: It was a was it a mineral?

Henry Benson: No, no. Spring at right. And it run right out to down below there. And they had a campground up there in a different one from Moscow. And all over the country would go up there and camp there. Well, go down there and get that water.

Nina Seybold: Then they had about the quality minnows, which was a big, big one minute run way up.

Henry Benson: Yeah, that is all. Well, if I could just think, you know.

Oh, that is old Lanphier.

Nina Seybold: Yeah. Lanphier.

Henry Benson: Old man. Lanphier. He owned that place.

Nina Seybold: Yeah, that was a beautiful valley. And just go from miles up to here, go on the highway there. And you see that big, long one big wide meadow there all the way up there. Same farm.

Henry Benson: And then the party. Then after Lanphier left, he went to Troy and bought a place down there, or some place an orchard of some kind, you know, and, then, I forget now I'll have to think for quite a little while that got that place there, or land for your left. oh, I don't know.

Nina Seybold: I can't I can't think of any other man I know.

Henry Benson: He. That's okay. That that. Donner, Donner, Donner, Donner.

Sam Schrager: Goliad. Lanphier was quite a horse trader who left here. I heard 3 or 4.

Henry Benson: Yeah. Oh, the same. Yeah. I don't know. There's so many things that happened that kind of hard to remember anymore right there.

Nina Seybold: No, everybody was happy they worked.

Henry Benson: And yes.

Nina Seybold: They were.

Henry Benson: Well, you know.

Nina Seybold: And they used to as well as I say, they fix or something. They got the chance and we have the administration come and then go into each other's ham dinner. And, you know, just like a big family all the way, all through. I knew it was just like a chain. Oh, where there were nobody.

Henry Benson: But I want to show you one thing I want to ask you. Have you ever looked at that little old engine shed and down there with the people here?

Sam Schrager: It's nice, It's a nice engine.

Yeah. What's so funny? Do you work on that engine?

Henry Benson: I sure did, I pulled that partner Korean over 12 years, which I built. Engine.

Log trains. A lot of them.

Nina Seybold: Yep.

Sam Schrager: Is that what you did? You were engineer on the train?

Henry Benson: Yes, engineer. You betcha. And in 1935, then they put me in it. Runners. Foreman. Millionaire. Many a time I climb in that little engine down there. And then when the engine the next morning, I throwed boards in there. The cork stabled.

Believe it or not. Stay in there for two minutes. Crawl out, head first, back in feet first, not firebox. That fire door. Now shovel nine and ten ton of coal. That little engine down there.

Firing with a scoop.

Up in over 50 years for that railroad.

Nina Seybold: Yeah, you're much.

Henry Benson: Longer than that.

Nina Seybold: I say over. Yeah. Was steady work, and everybody was happy to get in work to.

Sam Schrager: I'd like to know what you know. What it what where do you start down at?

Henry Benson: Plus, Laird Norton had the first sawmill down there. Plus. Shore timber for that sawmill. Live right down here today. And for the railroad went then right here to Putney. They call it Potlatch. Stopped in that sawmill. And I guess now that no fool.

Sam Schrager: Did you work down there between Palouse and Potlatch?

Henry Benson: No, no, that is MP. I roll Jerry Jones. He was an engineer before they went here to Potlatch of NP. And that sawmill, Laird Norton. Laird Norton was the one that got that sawmill started down here. Now all the timber up, some of them. And then after they got organized down here, but then they saw their own timber, and then they finished building up the dry kiln and the dry shed and the planer shed and all of that stuff.

And then the Weyerhaeuser, the, the after Laird Norton left for then it was straight Weyerhaeuser, PFI, Potlatch, forest.

Sam Schrager: I think maybe I should come back again and just talk. And maybe you and I could just. I could just talk to you about the railroad and what that was like.

Henry Benson: I right? I can tell you the whole detail of it now. I can name every station, every place.

Now had a proof. Not that I was willing. That on this side, a fluke. About five miles. And then Canada Ford at down here where the warehouses sit down here at Kennedy Ford and then come to Potlatch. That's part legacy. Tentative. Ford is another place you and then Princeton. Princeton is another place. We used that to stop. And then up there beyond Princeton was a more siding.

I don't know whether you know anything about him or not, but more, she called it. The more she siding and mortar siding. It is Harvard.

Sam Schrager: How many miles between Princeton and Morris?

Henry Benson: Well, I got some old timetabled cards here that I can show you what it is. I think they're still in here.

Between marshy and and Harvard, it's only about a mile. Maybe a little bit more or less. I don't know, I wouldn't really say, to be honest with you. And from Harvard, the Yale at the top of the hill. And then from Yale, it is Vassar. And from Vassar that are dairy.

I called Princeton, didn't I? Yes. And some bastard to dairy and some dairy interest. Cornell. Cornell. Revolve it.

Yeah, yeah. Someday, when you have time and want to wish to wait, I think I got a couple of old timetables here. There it is. There later than what I was speaking of. No. But they changed the time on the running time.

Sam Schrager: What was your run like? What was it? What was the run like? What did you, Where'd you haul and how long did it take you?

Henry Benson: And that time that that for sure that it right on that time you had to make that time between each show and then stations.

Then if you didn't do it. Well, then in a whole. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I was going to tell, you know, gamble you the big yarn down here one time. You know, the gamble. Anyway, he gave me orders. He says, now any time, get on that top of that tank at that engine down there, you should run.

Stop and run them off. Right. Then he ball me out because I didn't make time. I had to see and run them off. There's a they call them the bomb. I don't know if there's one in blue. There's one over here and there, one ball. You used to go in and make their lunch each is one flush. And then whenever the blue job come up through here, they'd jump in and then empty buck cars with the doors or.

No right. And then when we'd stop here, would they then load, get off. Go down there in that place, there to, you know, mulligan up, I guess, or they call it.

Sam Schrager: That you mean, you mean the bums? You said they were little places where they'd stay.

Henry Benson: That right? That for sure. You had one place when you're in the park, like one ball.

Sam Schrager: What was in them? What was in the places? Where? The places to sleep?

Henry Benson: No, the strap in the both cars. With their doors and open. They slept in the boxcars. Some of them had blankets on them. Some of them didn't. Morton did, though. Carry the blanket.

Sam Schrager: well, were these guys or these guys real hobos? Were they just were they know.

Henry Benson: They were traveling from place to place. I don't know whether they were hobos or what they were. They were all right.

Sam Schrager: Anyway, so what did gamble get mad at you about?

Henry Benson: He told me. Run them off the tank of the tank on the back end of the engine room. Oh.

And then when I have to run them off like the orders I got in him, she. Well, if I'd have to stop and start my train again, then I'd lose a little time. She.

Sam Schrager: Did you just let him go? Sometimes because you like to.

Henry Benson: Put your life in some, road between the cars.

Nina Seybold: Or on the road?

Henry Benson: No, not the road to hang on the ladder. Fair and road. Yeah. Then half a dozen. road to Dewey from part I to Dewey. Hang on to them. So it the boxcars. Yeah, because the doors wouldn't open.

Nina Seybold: Well, that's nice. I have a visitor here. I hope they got all the nursery. Oh, yeah? Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Thanks. Thanks for talking with me. Yeah.

Nina Seybold: Awesome. I enjoy that you get. I had, you know, history down.

Sam Schrager: Yeah. What we do is, is, And keep it. Is it.

Henry Benson: Well for the road piling on and bridge, you have to or or the horse pull that hammer up there and it trip and drop down. Right. Perfect. That's on the lot of these young fella don't know nothin about, she. That was low.

Nina Seybold: Nice ballet that way.

Henry Benson: To that, right, mom? but that. And then then that team. I had a guy driving that team and pull that rope back down to hook on the parlor. We get.

Sam Schrager: Did they use more than one team for.

Henry Benson: no. Just one team. Pull that hammer up there and roll that. Piling down that on Ridge 17.

Yeah, I've seen everything in the books.

Sam Schrager: I want to ask you about these. These bombs erode, derailed at the same with the same guys. Stick around for a lot for, would you see the same guys over and over again on the train with the same guys? Ride those rails.

Henry Benson: Same guys, ride them rails?

Sam Schrager: Yeah. You said as the hobos that were on the train.

Henry Benson: Well, I have no, no, that's something I couldn't answer because I wouldn't know who they were. Who they weren't.

Sam Schrager: Yeah.

Henry Benson: But they didn't hurt nobody.

Sam Schrager: No, no.

Henry Benson: Not a bit in the world.

Sam Schrager: Can you tell me what it was? What you. What your job was as the engineer? What your part of the job was?

Henry Benson: My. I was an engineer. From an operating engine, that little engine shed. And right down there. And I had the 2120 and the 22 and the 23, the three five different.

Nina Seybold: Lugs and the bigger end control, like.

Henry Benson: Well, that little engine down there.

That really had a really a wonderful engine. And I helped superheat get that one spot. And the 21 made superheroes, instead of a slavish tech.

Sam Schrager: How did you make the change? What did you have to do to it?

Henry Benson: We had to make them big flues in there and put them units in there in two, two sheets, two different sheets. One of the firebox on the front end.

There were a big pipe. There were 16 inch pipe at the Munich. And then four units goes in each one of them. Flues.

Sam Schrager: Did it. Did it make it much easier to run after that.

Henry Benson: Or better power? We didn't have to take water. Every time you turn around. You go to Bovill with them little engine there and with the 21, and haul all the tonnage that we could haul. Didn't have to stop and take water which still have water. When I got to Bovill. Otherwise we'd have to stop at Stanford.

Yeah, but. And then every, every four years, we had to pull them units out and put clamps on them because they got burned off. See, then we had to test it again.

Test their tank, test the boiler, shut the pumps.

Had just shut them. Popped every month.

Had a gauge and the there by the firebox. But engineers there probably. And that guy firn firing it shut the pumps. One of them was 195 and the other 191 the pumps or, you know, there and checked and pumps gauge outside and gauge inside.

Sam Schrager: He had do that every month,

Henry Benson: You betcha.

Sam Schrager: Would they be off very much when you'd said them?

Henry Benson: No. But then that fed him. Man called for it. She.

Had to do it. Or else something else.

Sam Schrager: Did you have any accidents?

Henry Benson: No. I never had no accident. I picked up a lot of wrecks. So I can tell the world that,

Nina Seybold: You that.

Henry Benson: I did not.

Nina Seybold: Have had that 18 cars piled up up there.

Henry Benson: let,

Nina Seybold: Well.

Henry Benson: At one, the engine was all right. But now I'm going to tell you all about that, too. Nagel was that big shot in the wood. We had them dub there in flat sheet. And, that the time that 1930, when there's rock in the road here to the railroad and, all Nagel he said, load them up, load them up, load them up in a big Ole white pine log that rolled off the switch.

There it vasser busted switch and 18 cars went down through there. So when them logs went through that warehouse here, 18 car piled up there just like that. The straw pile. Okay. I had 18 cars behind me and I took them on into Potlatch.

Sam Schrager: Now, where was the log on the train? It was in the middle nose on.

Henry Benson: They had short logs. She and he said I would making 45 miles an hour down to their downhill direction. Now, if can can to make a run for the hill to get over over the hill there and tell him he's back behind pushing me. She read 60 some logs.

Nina Seybold: And some pretty long trail run log train there.

Henry Benson: Then we. Well, yeah, I had a helper behind me, but he's supposed to help me up top of year two.

Sam Schrager: Now, which car was the log on? The one that I.

Henry Benson: Don't really tell you. What car.

Sam Schrager: Well, I just mean it was in the back of the train in front of the train.

Henry Benson: In front of Helen.

Sam Schrager: Okay.

Henry Benson: Helen had 3 or 4 cars back at him after we derailed there. She at that big old log rolled off and hit the switch there and broken she and throw them card one I'm sure, and one way. And some of them went the other way.

Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Well, who got, who got hacked for that?

Henry Benson: That the real old Nagel should have got hacked for that because you said load them up, and then they said you're making 45 miles an hour. That's what log said. He'd come to the office building and sit in Laird. And he went up there and looked at it. A whole flock of them went up there and looked at it.

Lloyd mold. Lloyd mold is break. And you said not on that tank. Him and then in the Georgia Swift shed and on the tank there. I looked back there and I see one of them cars going down to there, and I just took off. Get away from there. I didn't go very far. I went down past that derailment.

Sam Schrager: What? tell tell me, what else have you seen like that? I mean, what, axons have you seen that were bad around here?

Henry Benson: Oh, I've seen so many of them. I know.

Nina Seybold: That guy. And I went over that. Ritter was gone.

Henry Benson: All of them were asked that one time. I didn't want to come back over. When I went up one day with the logger I had, I know, 1300 ton. Oh, wait. And I went over Bridge Ken there and the way braces cracked and broke on the bridge here. Bridge ten and I went on into Bovill. I got over the train, went on into Bovill and then got my train load logs coming back.

But I told him I had not gone back to that bridge lipstick and the shovel them kept off with the shovel. Just throw them up. Well, I got you might think that's funny, but it ain't no joke about.

And then they're that, Bridge 18. Now there's another place. I had the slide out to there, much like in the hollow. Me behind. I had to go to work a little bit. Helen hid behind. We've taken up logs at camp six.

In the packing pack there. And. And Helen, he said, I ain't going up there to there today. Shit. I'm gonna sit here and wait for you to. You come back. And I wouldn't come back across that doggone bridge because it all slid out. But the only thing you'd see, the rails hanging on them all silver. So I stopped there on the other side of camp six.

I didn't go closer. I wouldn't go across there. I'd walk across, but I wouldn't run the engine train across. It.

Sam Schrager: So they fixed it?

Henry Benson: Yes. They kept it there for six days before they got it fixed.

Sam Schrager: The train just set there.

Henry Benson: There they had to have the nightwatchman to work that engine. Keep it hot. She. But they didn't go there for six days.

To lateral that up and fix it. Now when I come across it right I could look down there. There nothing. They look at only a bunch of crap down on the other side. There. So.

That at one time that I refused to do anything that really fair.

If want across here, then ditch that engine, put it in there and then some other. But each hard neck. There. Bridge 13 two. There is another place that I refused to go across.

Sam Schrager: What was the matter? And with average, what was the matter? There?

Henry Benson: Well, what wouldn't matter with it that the whole deal place. I would, I know when I ride over the rails and over here, just back in order to it.

Nina Seybold: Got to change,

It's kind of shaky bridge then. Shaking when you go over the bridge like that from the.

Henry Benson: Well, who wouldn't be it after you get over and you can see what happened.

Sam Schrager: Well, how did these bridges get fixed? Did they have a special bridge crew?

Henry Benson: They had a bridge crew, but nowadays they ain't got no bridge crew. They ain't got nothing anymore. Used to be seven checking crews between Plus and Bovver.

Now they got one here at Potlatch and they got one that go to duty.

Sam Schrager: What was the pay like on the section crew? Do you know.

Henry Benson: $0.47 an hour? I, I pull that low, crane it for $0.27 an hour. Ten hours.

Sam Schrager: When was this or that?

Henry Benson: In long time.

Sam Schrager: Well before that. Before the depression? Back in the 20s.

Henry Benson: Yeah, in about 20. 20, 25 or 26. Somewhere around there.

Sam Schrager: You got the same as a section crew?

Henry Benson: Yeah. All downhill. He said that it's going to be all the same. I work too much for that $0.27 an hour. Then finally, the union took it over and said they weren't going to make a change here. Then they raised it up. I got $0.59 an hour. Then they pull a train.

Sam Schrager: That's a big job.

Henry Benson: Well, they jump, then.

Sam Schrager: It up and.

Henry Benson: We had it coming now.

Sam Schrager: Oh yeah, that's for sure. Well, what was the union.

Henry Benson: Well they had 3 or 4 of them there and that one CIO and that and

Sam Schrager: Craig's there, the IWW in there.

Henry Benson: Well, that is 1920. Now 19 1730. I can tell you now, when I went to World War one. The 1917, that's when the war Ablations really put it on here.

And I was drafted in 1917.

Sam Schrager: What did you think of the Wobblies in?

Henry Benson: Well, I think they straightened up the whole thing. You betcha. They got rid of them old haywire bunks that you just have to sleep in. Stuff like that.

In a.

Draft. I was drafted, didn't they? Had to go to Moscow. And you got to have had to stay in jail there because the sheriff over there was looking after someone said he had charge of the show. Goes over there, left here at 1:00. I think it was in the afternoon. Went over there and colored it all up. They're the ones that are drafted during that time.

She. Had to do it then. and we went in there, the sheriff's office there, and they said, well, here's a bed for you fellas. And he said, I think there was supposed to God, there she he said, here's your place. You got a camp? No. So, okay. good. And well, Then that evening, then that afternoon, he said, we're going to go to Troy.

He said, the sheriff says we're going to go to Troy. So we got in that white wagon that they had that. and Jack Campbell was the sheriff in. I think I'm sure we'll go to Troy now. We're going to go down there and see what they're doing down there. We went down there and well, he said, you boys, come on, let's go in here.

We've got some apple cider in here. He said, yeah, it tastes pretty good, he said. So we went in there and it was hard. Cider boy. Apple cider and really hard to.

We stay in there for a couple hours, I guess, or something like that. Valley says, boy, let's come on back. We're going to go back to Moscow now. We went back to Moscow. Nash laid on the jail floor. There.

Then they are gone now.

Sam Schrager: What was he doing with you then? He was just giving you guys a good time before you.

Henry Benson: Left, right? That for sure? You bet. You need a good day to.

Yeah.

Sam Schrager: When you say the. The Wobblies were poor and in Ogden in 1917. What do you mean, pouring it on?

Henry Benson: Let that cleaned up them. Don't car them. Load cars or them bunk cars that the people were in the camp sleeping in on Strawbridge.

Sam Schrager: Was there any strikes that you knew of? Did they go out, stop work.

Henry Benson: Went out in the service then? Not sure. I couldn't answer that.

But. The Wobblies straighten it out. Then I can show you that because my dad and I and Joel used to freight from Princeton and Harvard to camp six on slaves.

Stay here.

Many a time old dad and Joe, they used to ride drive in the front here. And Nigger Joe had four horses on his team. And he told me, said, you get up there on that sheet there and sit there and guard them. They didn't have to guide them. They'd follow the rest of the.

Well, I ain't kid nobody. I know what I did.

Nina Seybold: Well, you know, come back again and tell you some more history. I'm probably not this right.

Sam Schrager: Oh I'm up maybe. Oh, every other week I get up from afar.

Nina Seybold: Is it really limousine?

Sam Schrager: I move Berridge, Umbridge and I work right angles.

Henry Benson: Place them.

Sam Schrager: I work out of Moscow a lot at the time. most of the time.

Nina Seybold: And you got some more in history down there, haven't you? Yeah. Well, they're one.

Henry Benson: Of the company.

Sam Schrager: Yeah. Okay.

Nina Seybold: Yeah. From.