Latah County Oral History Collection

Sam Schrager: Carl Lancaster remembers tangling with a crazy man. Chicken stealing that could hardly be called stealing. Sleigh riding and a couple of mean tricks that happened to him when he came over to Princeton from Harvard. He explains maintenance work on the railroad and some of the old logging terms.

He said I should ask you about, sleigh ride.

Carl Lancaster: Yeah. You bet.

Sam Schrager: Tell me about something about that.

Carl Lancaster: I think you know. Right.

Sam Schrager: So what's the story about the sleigh?

Carl Lancaster: You mean the Kostner?

Sam Schrager: Well, I don't know. You didn't tell me?

Carl Lancaster: Well, I'll tell you what we used to do. We used to take a pair of light bulbs, and we get up on top of the hill there at Harvard. We just take. And we put a plank on each side. By golly, we'd swing that dark tunnel right back over to that bunker, that sled, and then $0.01 on the back bunk and still that kind of thing.

Well, I mean, we go down the mountain. You bet. And then another time, you might have reference to that, it's when they reorganized the Grange at Kennedy Ford. When they reorganized the Grange Kennedy Ford. We took a six horse team down there that night. That. What did you do? Oh, we went to. Well, we, Well, the Grange and always a kind of a former farmer's lodge, you know, and we had a good grange at Harvard at that time.

And, by golly, we and they wanted reorganized. And so there was about at least 25 of us, you know, at that time when we left Harvard. The road doesn't go like does. No. We went up over them darn hill. And then when we got home, we called Hampton and we went around through Onaway and that way and up over them hills and yeah, we took the six horse team down there and one sleigh that also trip.

You see, we all pulled into Harvard and fed and consulted with us and, and we left just as quickly. They got out of school because they got out of school. And I don't know. And, I think, I think that we kind of got criticized for that because I think we did get back time, I think, for school, for the teachers to go to work quite early and up the next morning, because I'll tell you, that was a long trip, was a little team went from Harvard to what we call Kennedy Forged in Oregon.

Before I went to work, where we went to the Harvard Kennedy home. Bet you bet you you know, you see, Glen and I, we were kids together, you know, he lived, one side of Harvard, and I lived on the other. That.

Sam Schrager: The river kids. Is that what you do for kicks in a winter? Yeah, right.

Carl Lancaster: That's all. Yeah. And go to dances and stuff like that? You bet. I bet you.

Remember that. And then up the river, once in a while they'd have a dance up the river or something like that, and we didn't have a load. Nothing going take one time, but, we had load and we take for one sled. He bet.

I imagine.

Sam Schrager: What about chickens?

Carl Lancaster: It went up.

Sam Schrager: That he told me. Have you tell me about.

Carl Lancaster: Oh. Oh, that would be great, oh. Okay. with, they had revival meetings there at Harvard, and he told, you know, just about as much as I did. We had his team and mighty. And we've been sleigh riding in this old Betsy down there. and I had a darn good set of bells on my team.

I had a darn good set of problems on my helmet. And so, by golly, we went around with a flat. I took the bells off and the horses and and I don't know, there was Glenn and I and his brother and I, and we might have talked about a half a dozen chickens, you know, and so, by golly, we pulled out of there.

And then when we got the, we got the chickens got in the barn sacks. And so then we pulled up the road, I pulled up the road I was driving, I pulled up the road and turned around. When I stopped to put the bells back on my horses, and we pulled. It was Jim Carter, you know, a bachelor.

So I feel right up in front of his house and holler that he was what I said. There was this. We got a bunch of chicken dishes. can we bring them in and and cook them? Oh, yeah. You bet. So, by golly. Oh, we did. We unloaded them and all the. So then we took off to the barn, put them in Jimmy Barn and although we had quite a party, but the only mistake we made, we've got the only white hen he had.

yeah. That's the only mistake related. Oh, he got so he caught me at Harvard one day, and, I was, he never said anything for a long time. And so he caught me in Harvard one day, you know, he said, you know, he said the story only worked. You know, I had, you know what else?

Yeah. You bet. Yeah. Moly. Well, that was quite a cool. Was that my two. They were the two drillers and myself, Martin Johnson and Sigurd Johnson and. Homer wide on all and all fours. Oh gee. There was a big crew. I was you bet him.

Sam Schrager: I heard there was a pretty good rivalry between Princeton and Harvard back in those days, too.

Carl Lancaster: Well, I pulled in there one night to a dance. I pulled in there one night to a dance with a 14, and I had, well, that I had, Oh.

No, shoot or anything, but, Hornsby, I had, well, harvest team with me that night. I had this team, and we got a nice pair. A little gray pair of jeans, good leader. And we pulled in there. I just pulled right through. And by golly, when we got to one, we got ready to go home from the dance.

By gosh, we didn't have a blanket or nothing. And yeah, they stole the whole works. The only thing that left was the blinders on our horses. They took the rest of them. Bet. Oh, yeah. But, ordinarily, we didn't have too much trouble, but, But one time, one night, I lost the top of my buggy off the top of my buggy.

That was, I don't know what they was figuring on catching me or not, but by going out over, somebody stretched a wire across the road, and I lost track of my head. That's, call. And what you, call the. Call it back. Bear Creek Road. You come out of Princeton, and if you're coming from Potlatch, you turn right.

Yeah. You go in that back road there and then come up and by golly, over in there, by golly, there's a wire stretched across the road by and the been asleep in that buggy. I don't know whether the company around the neck or the road caught me. I had my lines tied up. But,

Sam Schrager: You mean the horses were were doing themselves? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I.

Carl Lancaster: I think I was, I was asleep in the buggy. I was reading about in the horses. Just going for themselves. You bet. I well off the top of my buggy that. But ordinarily that I never had too much trouble. Of course that night I thought we lost the blankets out of the car. Of course we had some bird people caught him and his wife.

We had, So we're married. Couples witness that night that we lost that outfit. What we did, we went down or we went down to the masquerade ball that night. Probably going down there that night. But we had quite a time there. But.

Sam Schrager: What did you guys ever. Did the twins ever slug it out or was it over and over? Baseball game.

Carl Lancaster: Oh, I don't know what. I never did. That's what I said. No, I never did have any fights down there. I know that an event for the betterment.

We did down there a lot, too. And then they used McCarver, too.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, that our guy in Princeton telling me about going up to Harvard, you know, getting empty seats back there. And so we were Hastings and they were AC and we thought they were a little further back. And we were.

Carl Lancaster: bet I bet, yeah. You know. Yeah, he was a Cummins. And then, Preston Bundy used to come up there and all. There'd be quite a few come up to Harvard to answer that.

Sam Schrager: So if there are other stories that you can think of from when from when you were a kid, because that's part of the old times that you know what kids do. Yeah. When your kids are. Yeah. What they used to do, you know, when they didn't have all the things they've got nowadays.

Carl Lancaster: Yeah. But.

I lost it home. I lost the tongue out of my sled when I was up here. I'll tell you who lives there now. All the places where, until, Cool down. McCormick. Yeah. No, it was there. No parking. Right. And we'll see who's going to get hooked up first. I was the only one. I was the only one that had a four team in the outfit.

And by golly, you know, I started out there, and I started out there working fast, and, my left town runner, Peter Stone. And by golly, you know, four horses just took me right out to golf cross country park. Yeah. You bet. Yeah, I took the wrong, I took the wrong. It took the turn around and I'm my left me back.

Thank you know.

Sam Schrager: So how did how did you handle that? how do you handle that?

Carl Lancaster: Well, I just got, I just took him and took me out at all in one scene. Peyton cleaner. He owned the place and got his land, and I, went back and got it the next day. That.

well, in fact, all that happened. I tell you what it is. There's what you call a rope that fits in between your runners like this, and then you got a big rod that goes right through here. You see? And then there's rings here with braces you see on it. And, and all I did was, when I bent this rod that took and let the rest of it loose.

that left the rest convolutional. It went. So you never left the rest of loose back. There wasn't anything broke as far as that goes. I had to straighten the rod with the minor, repair it all. It wasn't hard to put and hard to repair. Of course, I couldn't do it that night. But I went back the next day and took it back and got home.

But you can also track what.

Sam Schrager: That did you ride? Ride horseback a lot when you were a kid?

Carl Lancaster: No, I'm not too much. It was it was a lot easier for me to hook up a team than it was in the saddle. I don't really care much for the wagon horse. I bet I never did care too much about what I did. A little bit pregnant.

Sam Schrager: So mostly, boy, you got around by a team.

Carl Lancaster: Came and slept better. But either one I had, oh, I always had when I was on the ranch or I had teams left to go back and, you know.

Sam Schrager: What about cars? Do you remember when the cards first started coming in? Well.

Carl Lancaster: Oh, yeah. Well, I can remember, sure. They, the first the first car that I rode in was, was a 1912 model T Ford. That's the first car I rode from that that was, I'll tell you who had it. And that was worn me out there on American Ridge. He was American. Raised that time. I suppose you heard a junior major American ridge engine.

Well, that was his dad, in fact. or he made, first wife was my first cousin. Okay. You bet. And, and that's the first car that one had was a either 11 or 12 Ford. I don't remember that first car ever. Podium. And then about the next one was an old case. MacGregor's come in there from hooker, and they had a sheep camp right below our place.

And. And he had a barn, a sheep pump and, up in the blues. And they asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. And so I said, why? Sure. So I've gotten that old case. We went to Harvard, then went up to Blue. See, I, I'll tell ya, our ranch is where I live, right?

Where it just virtually is now, between here and Harvard. That's where I was raised up, where I got away from home. Back then, I just talked with my mom and so on. And so we went up there and, and so, I followed him. Of course, Smith had the store there. He had a barrel of gas with a pump in the lower right and up.

But, this guy, this McGregor, I don't know which one was the three brothers. I don't know two of the names of Pete and John, and I don't know what they were, but this was one of them, McGregor's. And he pulled in there in that case, and it was low on oil and all, and all. Course, Smith had me report a gallon of, cream separator oil.

In that case, he took off. He didn't have movie and poured a gallon of things after he was not comfortable with it. But, and. Yeah, and, well, I had my first car in 1920. I had a Ford that.

Sam Schrager: Always harbored, like, when you were growing.

Carl Lancaster: Up, or it's, and it's just about the same as it is now, of course, hotel building. It's gone. And I couldn't tell you about the population. I suppose the population is probably just the same, but same then as it is now. I was in there a year ago, last summer. I was down there a year ago.

Last summer, well, we talked to, my wife's sister. Want to go down seeing a lady there and Mrs. Young was then going on, so I took that on, and then, cleared a champ Ridge and Harvard. He's a very good friend of mine. I don't know who you ever met him. All. No, I haven't. Yeah, I'm.

He he never came into this country. The 1935. well, you got Ed Hilton's name. Don't have to want to use the swamp. Poor John Buckley. Did you get Ed Hilton's name? Belle.

Sam Schrager: Is he still around?

Carl Lancaster: Oh, no. He passed away. oh, two years ago. It'll be two years this coming spring. That it passed away. He was over 90 years old. Well, Claire DeCamp was, Ed Hilton's. Is that Hilton son in law and then son in law.

He, him and Buck B, they worked together for years and years and about to go to that Hilton's swamp and and.

Sam Schrager: Well, I thought you told me that your father was, was mostly a logger. I didn't know he had a ranch.

Carl Lancaster: No, that was my stepfather. Oh, that was my stepfather. You know, I never knew my dad or one or night or two. December 1922. See, I was 20 years old, and that was my stepfather did that very well. In fact, a part of it was my dad, but my mother and that separated when I was a baby.

And so, he homesteaded 160 acres in there. And my stepfather, he had, he had, he had an 80 acres in there. So it was 48, 41, 240 acres. But what my stepdad did love to bet, yeah, I my mother died December 8th when I was a baby. And then she stayed down there, and part of the kids went one way and part of them another.

She. That was a big family. That was. She was, 13. I was in the family besides, my half sister that made 14. But yeah, I had brothers and sisters that I never even saw that.

Sam Schrager: Who did? Many of them live on the farm with you?

Carl Lancaster: just one brothers on that, that one I showed you a picture of. That was Clark and he didn't, he didn't stay there. Just quit it. He got old enough to work. He then he took off.

But I stayed on the ranch till 22, and that's when I took home. That's when we rented the ranch. We rented what? Caught it out here, and then we bought a hotel there. And Harvard mother and I bought a hotel, and we bought that in 23. And then she passed away in 27. And. Then I sold the building to for a name a week.

Mark. Then it's burnt down now, though, and there's, there's a log. There's a tavern now. And the place of where? The hotel, hotel buildings set and. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Well, when did you first start working in the woods?

Carl Lancaster: 22

Sam Schrager: And you work when you were a boy. Much in the.

Carl Lancaster: Woods? No, I never no, I never did work in the woods at all. I went to the woods 22 to, Gee, I went to work on the on the, on the railroad down there on the Yale Hill. And, oh, in March 1920, I, I wasn't, gee, let's see how well I'm born in 92, so. I guess I haven't been 18.

That right. I've been 18 that. Well, I went to work on us and. what? I can tell you quite a experience down there, too. That was after I. After I left the section. And, I and, and that's when I had that first model team for the touring car, and, that was quite an experience, I'll tell you.

One, the very Gleaves was a deputy sheriff of Potlatch and this, hobo named Edmund Johnson of, was taken from, And really, I don't remember where I was gone, but I was I was headed up this way, and, and I got there just as a passenger train come up, and it was hadn't been Johnson here was a deputy sheriff.

And so, by golly, Gleaves, come up and let me know me. Well, I've worked him for two years. I've just quit the I just quit in just a little while before that. And, but what I think it was, I think it was between jobs from the time I worked at Camp Ken and and I was, then I wouldn't go down to camp one.

Good work. I had a dream I think was between jobs, and I was probably. I was coming up here somewhere and by golly, they stopped me and they asked me, they said, there's, there's at least, you know, construction camp there when they built the railroad dugout in the Darn Builder and they said, there's a section. He said, there's a crazy man in Pennsauken, and they want to know about hauling back to the train.

I said, well, we'll walk up. And by golly, you know, I turned around and they got another model G and I drove up there in front of this old shack and stopped. Well, it was practically a long road. We had to walk away back into the bank and and I could hear him in there. He was, snapping a pair of pliers, and I could hear that.

And so I and I tried the darn door and the darn door. Well, he had a black somewhere, and so so I got just a little bit too ambitious. I took and backed off and kicked the door in and, and, you know, I went in there and grabbed that old fellow, you know, and I turned to for him, by golly, he took and scratched my face.

He scratched my hand. He spit in my face, and I began to think it hurriedly. That was going to get ten toes off. And that guy, well, I was just scratched all over, so, by golly. And so then when we got to the train that I wanted to marry Johnson's patient, that she cleaned it all up like, you know, he had long and he had gone was just about here, ragged overalls.

And his feet was wrapped up and down inside. But I never scratched up my life. Well, I just couldn't do nothing. A little fella, he wasn't very big either, but boy, he sure strikes me as I got turned loose. I mean, that he. I was always kind of protective of kind of another crazy man, I'll tell you who.

Sam Schrager: Did anybody know who he was?

Carl Lancaster: And no, I never did find out, I never did. They took in your and I never did find out what happened to was or anything. He come in there. I guess he'd come in there the night before because bedroom said he heard him screaming or something or Harlan and and he, he called the, he called the deputy sheriff and potlatch them and and, but he came up on the train something that.

Sam Schrager: You know, where was he? Hide. Now, what what kind of what was he in?

Carl Lancaster: Just not a little. Just a kind of a it was a dugout cellar sort of watch. you see, it was the dugout cellar with the door in front of him. Imagine that. yeah. It's gone now. And, boy, I'll tell you something. That was something.

Sam Schrager: That sounds like it was.

Carl Lancaster: Better to turn loose on him. He kept going. Yeah.

Sam Schrager: Yeah, he just didn't want to let him go.

Carl Lancaster: Oh, by brother, I tell you, I. I'm beginning to think Harry Negro was going to get the handcuffs on him, and he just took that. Didn't do too. Didn't do too much either before.

Sam Schrager: Bolger. Oh. What did you do on your first job there when you were working on the railroad? What was the work that you did?

Carl Lancaster: Well, we was, Oh. Well, who was what we'd call it was raisin crack. That was we jack it up and then put rock under it, I mean, the level of track. And then we'd put in ties. We had to put in ties every year to know.

The foreman, he'd go along and mark them, the ones that he'd want, taken out. Then we'd have to take them out and do that pretty tight. And then we have to jack up the track, you know, down what we call half in the ties. Now, you see, that's all done with machinery now. You bet. That.

Sam Schrager: Well, so this was after the whole road was constructed? Yeah.

Carl Lancaster: Oh, yeah. After the whole world was built, that was maintained. This is what it was. Yeah. I thought you'd call maintenance back home.

Sam Schrager: I'd heard about it. About a strike that they had on the railroad.

Carl Lancaster: And that was in 1919. That was a you mean that was. You mean that's one have reference to.

Sam Schrager: I think it was.

Carl Lancaster: Yeah. That was the rail. That was the, railroaders up here. I mean, the one that, the company, the company. I don't think the guy on him ever had a strike, but, you see, but I think but, but the, company did, but I mean, the, the fellows that worked on, the train crews up here.

Sam Schrager: Or. You mean out of the camps?

Carl Lancaster: Oh, the camps. Yeah. Yeah, that's messed up. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that, See, yeah.

Sam Schrager: Well, you.

Carl Lancaster: Know, see, that was just before I went to work. Right. Okay. See, that was that was a fall before I went to work.

Sam Schrager: I heard that they lost a lot of good men and do. Well, that strike was on I.

Carl Lancaster: Oh, that was in 1936. Over here. that's when the WPA, IWW strike.

Sam Schrager: Oh, no, that's that's another one. Oh, yeah. I'm thinking about the railroad.

Carl Lancaster: Oh, you think about the railroad?

Sam Schrager: Yeah, I heard I heard that, you know, they had I heard it was pretty funny there. Yeah. You guys. Yeah. Yeah.

Carl Lancaster: Of course. I just want to say I couldn't tell you anything about that. Well, Norman's Nelson's father was in on that. It has his tavern there and very fuzzy. Oh, my gosh, look out there.

Sam Schrager: Just blown. And meet the band.

Carl Lancaster: Yeah. You bet. Yeah. Norman Nelson's father was, you know, on that because he was railroading at the time. And, and the next spring, that's when he come to go to work on the section was emo, and he wound up to be the section boss there during April. Nelson did. That's his dad. So.

Sam Schrager: Well, when you came there to work, were there any of the any of the, foreign Italians and those people?

Carl Lancaster: No, there were there were no, they were gone. And no, it was just strictly Americans. There was, up here at Bovill, I think they had 1 or 2 maybe, but, but the class of them, of course, extra can come in. They was all foreigners. What a nice extra game. They was all for the next big game.

Come in. But. But most of the local men was all. It was all in. There were all white people. Americans. You.

Sam Schrager: Very well. Then what led you to, get off of the, off working section and work, log and. Oh, I just figured.

Carl Lancaster: I just figured I'd make more money. See? Make better money. More money. But I but that's what I did. Anyway. I went to work. You know, my Aunt Tracy was the first foreman I work for. I drove the nose up here at camp ten, right up here on, cranberry. That.

Sam Schrager: When did you do. What do you have to do?

Carl Lancaster: Well, I was on logs and I went so on. That's first thing I done. I went home and went and saw and I went to driving team and then, went from driving to, well, I'll tell you, I want to, I want to Princeton and, well, I go team down there, Paul, before the name of Frank Johnson, I go for up on the grade.

That's what you call it. Crazy. There was one team in the woods, a bunch of logs, and then, then on. Then we had a pretty long haul, and we loaded them on. It's, Well, it was just a rig with two runners and a bunk, and then I'd load that, and then I picked up the one. That's what we call it, right?

And, I. And then the next, Well, then the next spring, I went, I went back in with my same partner again and, the next spring, I went to work. I went back on the same partner, and then he had his application to go school. And so he went to school and and, and so Tom Kelly, he was the camp foreman and, and I don't everything I never had a steady job down there.

Then all the time I was intelligent, I never had a steady job. And if, if there was a teamster short, I, I go team if there's a swamp or short I bought, and, I and one I didn't have anything else to do about one. So that's what I say. and, and, and I made preheating that I made pretty fair money at that.

Do you bet. Yeah. Well.

Sam Schrager: One team. But then did that. Did that team, that team bunched, and then you lowered those bunches.

Carl Lancaster: great. Yeah. And I load the logs on to ground, took them to work. You bet me back.

Sam Schrager: Yeah. Now, what were you loading with them?

Carl Lancaster: We load them by hand. We had what we call drop skins. See that?

Sam Schrager: They're just skins. It went from, from one to the other.

Carl Lancaster: Yeah, you bet you put them down. I bet, general, you know, we we put in a bunker on the sea. Was, one with one squid on which we put in it. We put it in a bunker, what we call a bunker. Then we'd have one skin. That way we could balance a log when we put it on the gray sea so that it it just just barely touched the ground.

We had that be the first load. And then the next one we have our. Then we'd have two skins and they'd be further back up the hill so that you put your roll them on again with a level three still level. You see we just load them by hand now.

Sam Schrager: So the bunk log was set underneath the skin and gets out on top of it and leveled it out.

Carl Lancaster: Bet that.

Yeah. Yeah. Well it does. The bunk log is what we call a head block and block. What we call that. So yeah, once you get on then we'd then that be, then we'd roll that on. You see that what we'd call it. That's what we call a bump load. And then we had corner bind. and there was two chains, one on each side, and it had a, a round hooked on a and a feed hook.

And you'd and, you got ledge outside logs you bottom of that. And then, then we put our skids further up the hill and then we'd roll until we just about level see that. That.

Sam Schrager: And what about a bumper law. You're telling me a good story about the bumper log before. Now we get a bumper log straight.

Carl Lancaster: Well this.

Sam Schrager: Is.

Carl Lancaster: The log. You know like I told you you your like 51 skid. Yeah. Well and this year you roll this log out here then you're blocking. That's what we call a bumper log. And we roll the rest of them again.

Sam Schrager: That's what I thought it was.

Carl Lancaster: Yeah. That's what I did up there at camp five when I was, when I was once for bread. Children, let him break that or and break that bunk in that gray. You right? You darn right.

Sam Schrager: He was leaving you on.

Carl Lancaster: He was. No, he he took more work. So you never left me nothing to. Because if you got a bumper log down there to catch it, it makes it a lot easier. But where you got to, And where you got a pretty fast. Get to what? I mean, the rock log roll. Pretty good shape. It's quite a job to get one out there, you know.

And that. Darn right I fixed him. And. But you.