Latah County Oral History Collection

Sam Schrager: This was recorded in Herschel Turnbull's workshop on Hatter Creek, Princeton in July 1973. Herschel was born in 1896. His parents were among the first settlers in the Princeton area. They separated when Herschel was young, and he was raised by his mother. Herschel worked as a scalar and cleared for Potlatch Forest in the Bovill area for many years. Early times around Princeton, centering on his parents and logging work, are main topics of his first conversation with Herschel.

The second sign was recorded after lunch.

But first thing I wondered was. Was what? What you heard about things that your father did before you were born. I mean, before you were around.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, he was, he was a miner for a long time in mind. In the hoodoo district there. And tributaries right on Camas. Creaky. He was, we did both plaster and mining. And, of course, on a smaller scale, he had interactively already ground out a little porch with for sampling, such as that. And, that was when far up the creek, only about one half two miles from the mouth of chemistry and around in there.

And they alone you can't read any other mining. But, and he also logged in the early day at Princeton auction and wrote the principal auction in there. And he had a large amount of property around here. And that best of man financially, a of anybody, although you require a lot in 93 why he went broke and everything closed up.

You couldn't get money there anything else? And he went broke and lost it better on Matea. He did do a gift horse. He had quite a lot of these year. Little Indian ponies such as that. They didn't have much value. But they did a lot of experiences, I think, in that mining, which is that. And then he he finally in his, latter days, he went over around Gifford and raised beans, even back to Red land and then about 40 acres of beans and harvested me and quite a lot of trouble with him, because the weather so many times, you know, would destroy them, form or damage him, that it keeping them drying up

to thrash. And he worked at that pretty much until he was retirement age too. He had to put it. And then he moved to Moscow and lived there the next few years of his life.

Sam Schrager: Do you know how he came to own so much land? How he started getting land?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, he came in and logged and worked hard. He was a hard worker all his life, and he worked hard. And, he speculated. That's how I come to get the land. That's also how he lost it, because even though I don't see him, he was keeping up things. And I even though everything he bought, like he lost someone when he seen a chance to buy some real cheap white, maybe got a little harvesting, I guess, and he'd buy more land.

And then when the hard time struck, why he that there was no work, there was no money and he couldn't make payments on and see on the things that he owned, and he couldn't even sell part of it to save the rest of it. So it was kind of a rough time. They had those days.

Sam Schrager: Did you ever hear about what it was like before they made, there be a town here, how it got, how it actually got settled up? It seems like your father had something to do with it. If he owned quite a bit of land around here.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, yes, but then nobody lived on it. And hardly at that time, I see there was, you know, just in there or in the, primitive state very near Indians would come in, you know, and you didn't canvased on this and of land there. And you, Timothy, you seem to natural Timothy Law on that was this this canvas was real thick in there.

They come in and be several outfits of Indians. I can remember those myself like. Well, they used to camp there, just south of Princeton through the hundred yards. But up here TB and dig these cameras. Estimated they'd hammer out making bread out of it. I guess that's what I always heard. I never checked around. Eat any.

Sam Schrager: And so they were still coming when you.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Were a little boy? Oh, yes. My mother was still afraid of me. Now the war was over. My father, he had taken part in some of the Indian, but did while the war was over and all that. But you know, even today we got outlaws and everything. And of course, the Indians in that the suspicion they were for anything we did.

Right. It was destroyed or anything they laid on the Indians, I guess the Indians later on, right? Yeah. And when we didn't feel too happy to be left alone or anything and, and usually I try to never leave my mother alone. She was a real good horseman. She got through that one time and, drug and fitness trip quite a ways.

And, she her health, she had very bad health. And she had many operations during her lifetime. And she always thought that it all related back to this injury from being dragged with horse. I don't know, that was a supposition. I don't know.

Sam Schrager: Was that when she was a child?

Hershiel A. Tribble: No, no, that was when her my father was living that she married my father. She wrote the hearts of my father for her to write, and he didn't think it was safe for him. He forbid her to write it. And one day he was gone away. She was quite a harsh woman, and she felt as though she could write it.

And so she got on it and it's children. You can get one for those trips. See?

Sam Schrager: You know what kind of injuries she got?

Hershiel A. Tribble: No, I don't know. Perhaps some internal injuries because she had a several operation. One operation was to go to I that and have him do that. But that I really don't know too much about that. But, even back to my memories, there was no, no settlement beyond about a mile south of Princeton was about as far as the settlement ranch.

And, until the homesteaders come in. And, of course, my my folks, a lot of them took up homestead in this country. And that was, of course, before my time. But when I, I can remember back to where these all moved. And cabins were real good. I used to like when, as a kid, you look around, you normally don't and would reaction.

Rarely do you think they took over after the people with them would.

Sam Schrager: You're saying that your father was here before the homesteaders came in?

Hershiel A. Tribble: I, I think he was, because of quite a lot of my, people. Homestead. I had an uncle at homestead, at the very place I live on here, and moved into my district here. You know, my brother and I owned a half a mile right in the middle of, 140 on the south, in the north. And we didn't have and, we had the a little lady on 160 homestead.

And so I'm quite sure that my father must have been here before the homestead values. But as far as any business of people living outside of that, they just lived on what the, what they had to do, you know.

Sam Schrager: To prove that. Do you think he actually made a living mining when he was doing it?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Oh, yeah. He never made anything big. And nobody I never knew of anybody. But again, rich Charlie. Yes, I guess it was probably several million dollars taken out of this country altogether, but there was probably hundreds of people mining. But they would get enough, you know, and that fine to get out into the they were still getting gold and they quit mining, but they'd pan out maybe about $2 a day.

Some of them, a few of them. Good. But, when we just got up and things where they couldn't live with that. Right. And then we're going to put mining and another thing in and it began to be farms appear on the river. And these farmers objected to price or money. And so silt down from the mines, you know, that someone was hydraulic mining, some of it plain digging and panning, moving cradles.

I had a little quilt out in the barn for years. It my father made that. And hogs still have to go up and, and, it's, they couldn't afford to pay these farmer dad like you see, for working at all.

Sam Schrager: I was. And I heard that, that your father, made this man wrong. I heard that he was mining. where was his money?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, in my mind, mostly on Camis Creek. That's when you're in Harvard, right?

Sam Schrager: I'd heard that. And he had, taken over, taken over some of the water that, and the father couldn't use because he'd been in he'd been flooding out Jim Cochran's land. Yeah.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, that's that happened to Jim Cochran. Glenn was better and smarter.

Sam Schrager: He was threatening a suit.

Hershiel A. Tribble: And, he was right there. You see, on I lived right there on Camera Creek in, in the flatlands there. And he was one of the ones that was causing trouble with the miners and the miners because they thought they should be able to mine and the phosphorus. They didn't want the silt down on the meadows.

And, so they kind of closed the miners out pretty much. They'd had to put them in bonds, you know, they couldn't afford to do it for what they were getting out of it. And then, it played out. It was slow. But, you know, later years, a good many years later, in fact, not too awful long. They put in a grant, you in the same country up in here with the mine that was mostly a little further up on the blues, but they put in a dredge and took out a.

Sam Schrager: Lot of them there. Do you know how your father got his claim?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, I don't know for sure now. I don't know if he homestead or not. I don't think so. Mother. Who turned it up at, what's now, Laird Park and, well, I call it grizzly Camp then, but now they call it the congressional camp, I guess. I don't know.

Sam Schrager: That's the other way around, right? They call it.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Yeah, that's what this is. I know they change the name of it tomorrow, but he had a homestead there when I was six years old. I think we left there just about that time, or they left. Was it, it may come down to at least within a quarter of a mile of, Camp Grizzly there. You just a very short distance here and there.

Sam Schrager: What did she have to live on the place to prove it up?

Hershiel A. Tribble: He she did have to live there a while. And, my oldest brother, who was made a living for. He worked out, and I stayed there with her when I was a little kid. And then, I had a nephew, my sister's boy. He was only three when I was six. He was two years young, and I was, he was, four years or older.

No, I think going back, he's four years younger than I was. He was two years older. And we stayed there with her.

Sam Schrager: What was it like? And the place, was it pretty primitive?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Yes, it was real primitive. But, there was, Mr. Homestead here and there. The people always stayed on them. I forget what the requirements was, but they had to take on some raw material. And, we stayed in there and they could come out to send children to school and for various things. So we didn't have to own them a little while, but it was nice back in there as cool and Fabian Mushroom, a great big old mushroom, a half as big as your head.

You can't even find it anymore. And in there, and you know, it wasn't too much deer in the early days. I think there was more deer here in the last few years. They're pretty scarce this last year. But, And they used to be you didn't see many here, you see. So I mean, you could you. I never saw a cougar myself.

And my father, I think, killed a cougar or two. And, there are quite a few there, but I think the more ordinary is now. But then, you know, the woods was primitive. Everything was primitive. Strange fruit, pure and clean. You know, they're not polluted like they are now. And they, you know, not realize that you could catch nice trout in any of them streams.

It was a lot different.

Sam Schrager: Were the farms really small?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, there actually wasn't any what you call farms in the days they, they had Timothy, the most more natural crop on the flats. They would cut and pasture the stock and things. There was, practically no farming. Did machinery, of course. Machinery. They used horses. Those days. But I think farm another bit, maybe didn't have gardens, but there was nobody living on 82.

Except when one once in a while on the river and in the background, you know.

Sam Schrager: Oh, you're talking now about when you were just a little boy.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Yes, I am. And we moved around a little. I lived in close for a while. I went in first term of school friends and that was I don't know, I didn't cook livestock and I was about seven. And although cabinet has been down for many, many years, very few people even know that there were existed there anymore.

Just you went down. But, at that time, there was only 20 automobiles as far back as I remember, about two, I think, and blues around that country in and around Moscow, and one from one of there. But I never had find a blacksmith. He wasn't a Negro, but he was short, black, and he'd give kids all right in the motorcycle evening and thank me.

And I sometimes I wouldn't ride on that framework and would ride on a motorcycle.

Sam Schrager: What was police like then?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, it was, real life, real lively before my day. Yeah, well, there was one at one time. It was supposed to be 13 saloons in the town of Blues. They had a mill. Now, if you take the diploma or anything, you you leave town, go with the ray's there on the north here. We have to call it down on the river.

On the river. And there's a mill set right in there with the two railroad tracks and the highway goes now. And, that was one thing that kept blues up. And they had two houses uptown that they call the mural. That was all practical, like, I like built for the cuz they had quite a number of churches there.

And the other churches, Street, they call it Church Street. I don't know, there must have been 5 or 6 different churches all along that street, but all the churches was on that one street and in down down there. I remember one in front of the name, and I come here in a drugstore for many years. I've been dead for a long time now.

And corner and hardware boys still around it. You, Pete and I know him quite well. Quite well. But then, they had the school down. When I went there, they had the one school. They had this old school. I said I first went to the school on the Northfield and one on the South. You and I went to almost every room and all the things that were schools, but we moved around so much.

I was there when they put me on the railroad, the putting up cement wall there, 19 six and as a kid, just you out. They had them all cans, you know, and, and powder cans, black powder cans blasting and there was jelly, a spoonful or so powder left in the bottom of the name, gathered up the name of the cable I say I used with a bunch of us kids, and we'd take them out and set up I for powder.

We could get out of them then, like a mother match and watch inflation. I got the bright idea. It took a flame to set it off. And I had a stick there and a fire on and went out. And I got to blow on this red ember there and get that down close to the hard eastern way with the powder.

And I thought I'd lost my eyes. I couldn't see for a little bit, you know, ashes and dust. The since my brother and I shot that I am blind, it didn't really injury anymore. It was pretty close call.

Sam Schrager: What do you remember as a kid about the putting in of all this, this new work when they put it in the railroad and the walls and, mill? Well,

Hershiel A. Tribble: My mother looked at that property. She was in the market. She saw see this whole thing up here? She sold it, and she was looking for a place she wanted to buy. And she looked at the property, right? Exactly where it was, how much damage. But that was for the little potholes there, you know, and I just. Oh, I'm not a Dozier now that wouldn't think anything about it.

But those days and they worked with horses. But you didn't see how you could farm it or do anything near with it. And so she decided not to buy it. And she bought a place over north and about to I, you know, you know, a couple of miles or so and later on it, it there.

Sam Schrager: There was nothing here. And was there.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Oh no. Absolutely nothing. And then they come in after that, you see, and then brought this up and put in the town and railroad and everything that was really already in the I don't know what you hear that was in, but, they had I wouldn't say they weren't. I wouldn't say they were. I don't know, because, when we lived on that place there north of Potlatch, I went to school.

So it. Must have been known there. But they come in and start building railroad 1906. But the town of Potlatch. So they hadn't established yet, I'm sure at that time.

Sam Schrager: Did a lot of people come in then when they started the building?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, yeah, there was quite a lot worked on the railroad. You know, they worked here and there. They put crews one place and some more up some other place, you know, so they could have different crews working at the same time. And the part of you come in at that time. And then they started, they bought that land up there with the town.

Right. They started building the town. See that it was a one man town and everything was for many, many years. You know, it, it, it the bank was put in there just to help. The working men that worked at the mill was on it before. And the store was, they advertised everything you can work with, but it was it was flatland store.

Everything was there. But you could not a land house in apartment at that time. And so, you know, they put a lot of people in there to work because she operated all these things work. And I think I started in question there. It was in Whitemarsh various other than Mr. William and but, speaking about the, the early days, you know, there was a pretty basic process in place at that time with all those loans.

And there was a brewery as you went in there, just did, as you want to pray and, post from the East side. I don't mean street. There was no thing. Wasn't me. Well, nowadays they wouldn't allow it. And 100 miles of civilization. And I don't think that's true. Perfume. The town could smell anything, right? Any place.

Sam Schrager: What? It smelled like it stink or did smell like that or.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Oh, it smelled, I guess, like. Yeah. Well. And of course, you go to a brewery now and then. There's nothing. Not a bad old Raynham at all now, but, I don't know. Hard days of fermenting. You see, in the, and the brew there, I think that went in large amounts on it. So I, I think it's open get for a while.

I think in that in like perfume goes out from there.

Sam Schrager: So Princeton was just tiny compared to Palouse?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Oh, yes. And Princeton were just tiny. Yeah, actually, Princeton started their Western, what they call Hampton, and that was the original Princeton. I think it was, anyway, that's where their student post office was. I can remember back to that, that that's the one.

Sam Schrager: Do you know why it moved?

Hershiel A. Tribble: I don't exactly know why I tell you. Yes, I think maybe I do. I think that, when the lights come in, I think they put their diplomas up on the hill from the, railroad track. And at Princeton is right on the level. And they would be. And they put the depot there, see? And, there's people who lived around here like my father.

They love loved. There's other people work, you know, long time and things, but there was no town. I don't know if there's even a store there at this time that what I'm talking about. That was when I was a little too young. I just can remember being up to remember, I had a scarlet fever when I was four years old, quarantine for a long time, and I figured I wouldn't, but, and, then bring it down or run the store and post office.

And my grandfather, he had a house there. Any any other. That's where I used to do, like for dances. It's all downtown. I remember you got the leaning and you had three poles on the west side of it, leaning toward the west. Okay. And you had people who looked like telephone poles up there from racists. Yep. I'm standing.

To get in. So. Good night. Probably want to throw me off this time that I, you know. Well, how about how.

Sam Schrager: Princeton got its name.

Hershiel A. Tribble: As named after of horse? My mother had they tried to know what I was going to name it after her, and, her name was Canetti, and they, decided to name the town Cora. And they sent us in to wherever they send, to get a register, I don't know, county seat or capital. And, they couldn't name at that because there was already a Cora in Idaho.

And, so then they decided to name it after a horse. But the name of Prince, I believe it was a piano. It was a Spartan pony, some kind of my mother's name decided to name the town after this, Spartan horse. And there was also a town by the name of Prince. So they called it named Princeton, I think.

So it was actually named after a horse that my mother had.

Sam Schrager: Do you know anything about with the depression? Did not 1993 to the Indian country? Well.

Hershiel A. Tribble: People didn't have any money actually. But what it did, they couldn't get any money and they just tightened down. They couldn't get any money. And then there's some of these land companies come in. I would hate to name them in the background of mine. It was, I heard it was.

Sam Schrager: Linked or high tech or something, I.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Think. Yeah, I think it pronounced type of thing. Yes. That's that's one of the outfits that had it. And then there was a fella around here by the name of corn belt card that bought up these wanted timber. My mother sold him. I mean, he was, and he bought up all his timber then at the time and, I believe the potlatch.

I'm not sure about this. Not only the potlatch bought some of the stuff from some of the other companies, from the some of the smaller companies, I don't know, but, some of these big outfits, you see, they had mortgages on all this. And so when, times that rough way, they called in code for clothes and gosh, I guess was mostly after the, the property rather than the money, and I, I follow through with them.

I couldn't pay I that's what wrecked my father and I guess affect other people. They had to start all over again, but they had no money to pay. You see that these was had a lot of time. normally on payments, but they, they just go down and do they had to have it right then. Where else.

Sam Schrager: Do you think that many people left at that time and when.

Hershiel A. Tribble: They. No, I don't think they left. I don't think they left at all. I, those people assume they worked. I think like the country they were thinking it was a new country and they didn't have any money to go anyplace else. Did they have any place up to go? Really? And, that where they could better themselves?

I don't think hardly anybody left here at that time.

Sam Schrager: How do you think they started to come out of it?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, I think things pretty soon begin to develop a little more. They begin to do every any with anything they could, maybe a little middle. Somebody did have a little private property left or something in some little number for somebody. They traded back and forth, most of without money, some from even more number, maybe trade somebody or some rutabagas or something that was trying to and barter and trade around for things, you know, and everybody help one another.

If anybody burnt out or had hard luck, everybody just grabbed the two and everything. They went right over there and they don't want anyone else because they make them outlaw, you know, grab the whole thing. Didn't cost them anything and starting up again that way. I mean, you know, home and they lived on almost nothing. They the, the Raiders have got five college.

You know who can't have any open learn things that way. And then they have a job. They have to make their own lard and pork and things that way to gradually begin to get a little on the farming idea. But then they could and different thing trade work. They just worked without money on.

Sam Schrager: What would they do if they didn't have any land? No. I mean.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, once in a while I'd find somebody big enough that needed help or something. I would maybe, maybe give a little bit of money just a tiny bit, you know, for things they had to have, maybe you'd pay them and suddenly it was that hard up. Why, they they'd need things too. And I don't maybe write a plan with them or something to get them to work.

They didn't have enough to pay. And anyway, to get by those days.

Sam Schrager: Did you ever hear anything from your father about about that times?

Hershiel A. Tribble: No, I didn't, I don't know my mother. I don't know any father. The, my mother didn't. After she left my father, she didn't want me to have anything to do with him or see him or anything, which was all wrong. But, she thought that she thought that he would want to get me back in that maybe or something.

He probably didn't need more. But, you know, he was a nice guy. Really nice. After I did get acquainted, I didn't really get acquainted. Didn't know he wasn't as almost grown. And I found out that he was a really nice man. It.

Sam Schrager: But, did you hear anything from her about it? About these times? The depression?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Not too much. I don't think she paid too much attention to her. And she definitely fared a little better. I don't mean that she had money, but a woman who got along better than man did those days. And she took up this claim, you know, and she got the real high price that she had a real nice claim up there.

She got $2,300, which was a lot of money at that time. She could have got a lot more money than that, you know, wrong. But she got that. And then she bought this place I spoke about at, north of Tallahassee. And then I don't know if she saw that. And she got an idea about going up to Spokane.

About five acres up there. I went to school one term there, and, she was going to make it on a truck farm, which was out of the question. She couldn't make anything. Everybody else around Spokane is trying to make a living that way. So she soon got out there, and then she, kept house for my grandfather.

Aaron Russo, took care of him until he died there the next year. And I said, I'm gonna go to school, because while we were there, I remember a little kid when he got a pension from the Civil War of $12 a month. It was pretty hard scraping around. But he had two houses not there, and he kept on running all the time and kept and he had or he could garden and everything.

And, mother, she didn't pay much. I think she was her father. And she had just either he just provided the groceries. I think we might be given her a little bit, you know, for my groceries. I don't know about that, but I think maybe she still had a little bit of money. But, Yeah, it was pretty rough.

Go in there. And then that pension. I remember the last I knew most you ever got was a double a $24 a month.

Sam Schrager: How about you? Father did. Did you, do you know any stories about in the that can sort of tell what kind of guy he was or different things that he did and heard?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, he was full of fun, real full of fun and always joking about everything. And, he was a happy go lucky guy. He used his politics to joke with a lot. And, you know, like me too. I mentioned that, what I mentioned the other day when I.

Sam Schrager: So. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a good. Well.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Yeah, I, I got a few little incidents at one time a year or, and some of the other, they, during the morning, they, someone was killed, I don't know, my father killed who? But one of them killed a a cougar. And that's between Princeton, Harvard, Kearney on the hillside above the little, road there. They propped it up among the rocks and things, or looked like a lion or some Chinamen working on the mines up there.

Come along. That scared them to death. I way out or out and everybody come along for a while. They had a lot of fun out of that and, probably did. And, and, another incident I remember he was always just joking and cutting up all the time, putting it in a minute. And then I remember. Yeah.

Him I don't know. I felt he was a distant relation about it, but he wasn't really one like that. Anybody, including us. But I see us and as before, my time or not, before my brothers, my brother, remember? But anyway. Yeah. Met this fella. It was a lot of fun. I was in a wagon going down the road, and, I don't know if they got into some kind of an argument.

Could have been political. They were on different events. I don't know what it was, but anyway, that's so funny. He had a 22 rifle in the in the, wagon, and he picked it up and pointed at my father and threatened to shoot me. And my father told him, he said, if you ever shoot me with that and I find it out, he says, I'll be yellow.

Yeah.

And it was that kind of a man. He wasn't afraid of anything. I think I'd run if he'd been me. But I don't want it for me. I used too many of myself and kill too many elk in my time. I know what they can do, but they're little things. He was always little things that way. And then he had.

And and a nephew of mine, he was, father, father. Kind of like bees. He used to activities and but he was, for real, because my nephew, he was, and afraid to be real afraid of them. And father says, I don't want any of you just keep back meat. Maloney said they would thing. And then he said,

So, nephew, they kept getting close. And father said one thing for you, if you get too close. And, they kept getting up there. And in fact, my father didn't get strung out among them. He could get a muzzle. And pretty soon, one time my father says, I told you, says I knew that he says the whole thing.

A Republican, every time you.

It was.

Radical Republican. And my mother was a radical Democrat, and I didn't know what to be at. But he was always fun and joking about that. And he tell anybody if his Republican is hollering about somebody, say what? They voted for it.

And.

Like you tell I think you'd think that people wouldn't want to shoot him, but actually he was always a joke and did it in fun. You know, he get by with it or other people couldn't. And he was awfully well liked. All my folks got the word on him. And my father.

Sam Schrager: It was he very political himself. Very well. He was.

Hershiel A. Tribble: he was county commissioner here in, in Moscow for, I don't know how long, but he represented this district from and I think he centric in Central Committee and, he didn't take any very big active party or try to run. I think that's right. And I don't think you care too much about going up into politics.

Anybody that I think the Democrats is all right.

As you go. 105 now you guys haven't done a darn thing. I betcha.

What do you mean? Hey.

Sam Schrager: We've been sitting here and talking.

All night. Doesn't matter.

Hershiel A. Tribble: All right.

Sam Schrager: You were right.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Are you married? Come in and have a wife with,

Look, I have a beer first.

We don't come in heavy burning building.

Okay?

Thank. I don't know what we've got in place now. We sure haven't got.

Okay, let's run many Chinese around the, here. Forum at a mine that others have passed up on camera for quicker ways matter. And I have two miles up mouth and they didn't associate much with other people or vice versa. And they, begin to get because they had the miners probably that these Chinese were making a lot of money, which and nobody knows for sure.

And so they they robbed them and killed them and nobody ever knew who did it. And, those days, they didn't try very hard to find out, especially where the Chinese and nobody ever knew if they got any money. Lots of people don't think they got any money or any of it, but there wasn't too many foreigners around, mostly where they were.

Local white people had in mind different nationalities. Naturally, but very few foreigners.

Sam Schrager: What happened to the Chinese?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, of course they killed those, and I don't know what they did. I don't know if people buried the bodies or what have you heard, but you never heard. There was a little before my time. So I just have to know what my father and my older brothers told me about it. but this on the same creek.

And my father, my known?

Sam Schrager: No, he never had any idea who did it.

Hershiel A. Tribble: No, not that I know of at all. Probably. Maybe some people didn't know who did it, but, might not been interested in it, say anything or have any part in it. That's the way those things happened. Lots of time, especially in the early days. You know, there was nobody around near to report doing, and it had to come by horseback to got in there and investigate it.

Sam Schrager: And do you think it would have been much different if it was white guys that had been killed instead of Chinese?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Yes. I think it had been some more different. But still there was things come up that I've heard them tell about that I don't remember the incident or anything where there was murders committed, and they paid very little attention to it. If a person in those days, if you just get across the line into Canada, why that was all there was to it.

Nobody tried to follow him any further in. And lots of people didn't even do that. They just move around some other location. And there wasn't much law and order those days.

Sam Schrager: Do you know any other stories about violence or murders read?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, my memory isn't very good. There was a murder committed right here in a little over a quarter of a mile from my place. Is, some jealousy. Something over a woman, man. Further up the line near the quickie came down and shot a man off my roof who are convicted. He skedaddled up to Canada. And that was a story anyway.

And nobody ever got a hold of him. Nothing ever did about it. Know? Guess they both wanted to at the same girl or something that we. I know it was this airport, but personally, I don't know. It was at the time I was old enough to know too much about these things, why law and order was getting not better established and they begin to get more roads and even got the railroad in when I was very young.

And then of course, with that came telegraph wires and telephones and so crime wasn't so easy. And, and people began to work for companies and get a paycheck rather than mining, and mining didn't any longer pay.

Sam Schrager: What are some of the different jobs that your mother did to? What was it like for a woman? Well, making a living.

Hershiel A. Tribble: She was pretty hard up. She kept eating in on her money she had from her, timber claim. But she did keep house a little bit in those days. It took taking in washing to keep out for some water or something. or. And I lived at farm. She kept house and did the housework for a man for a while, and she wasn't able to take in washing, and she worked a little bit picking fruit and various things.

Or in Spokane, when I was a kid in the, we picked cherries and and strawberries and cucumbers, whatever we could and, and things like that. And my mother made an attempt at a party at a time or two on Restaurant Spokane, but they failed it. She wasn't she was a good cook, but she wouldn't have a business would come to anything like that.

And she didn't have any regular profession. So it was kind of hard for her.

Sam Schrager: You told me that she ran the mail.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Yeah, she did run. she run a mail regular. That was when I was. That's before my time. Before my memory. I was real small. Or before I was born. I'm not sure. She did run a, a hacker and a team of horses from, from what is known as Hampton or part of Princeton or as, a store and post office combination there.

And she run a mail and carried passengers from there up to this little camp for a while. My sister even took her place a little while when she was sick or something. I don't know, I don't think it's too bad of a time, but she did run this, mail machine days, a month or horses?

Sam Schrager: What about, your brother? your brother, who was a cook in the camps. What, sort of jobs did he do?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, he never exactly learned a profession. I mean, he never stayed one, but he had three professions that he came pretty good at through his lifetime. And one. Yeah, it was a pretty good butcher. He did the butchering at the turn about. Well, for the, meat market that supplied all the Potlatch Lumber Company camps and the town of Beaumont.

At one time he did all the butchering, and he stayed with that a while. He didn't like it too well, but he anyway, he worked at anything. He could make a living. You and your wife and his girls lived up there, and I stayed with him and graduated eighth grade and school there. While I was staying with him and boom.

And then later on, my he became a cook in that and then potlatch camps and, he was cook dinner for quite a while. Several years he spent cooking again the name of being a good cook. He was very clean, cook. And everybody seemed to like him pretty well. But then in later years, when the logging kind of played out, he went to Carpenter.

Work had always been pretty handy with to work, and he went back. He went to work and building houses and repairing. And what whatnot. And he kind of could I worked there with him for about three years there, carpenter work. And then he helped build several houses, a turnaround in this community. And then that deer he built one and Avon one, and he spent most of it time, the latter years of his life working at Carpenter work, until he got too old to work and retired.

Sam Schrager: What if your sister.

Hershiel A. Tribble: My sister, she, she married, a railroad man. They lived in Spokane for quite a while, and, he was in charge of the pumps on the gas and the, he used to take out the extra going there to work sometimes. He was pretty high official in the railroad system. And you get the pumps and repair all along the line that supplied the train with water.

And, he lived there until he was transferred to Portland. And that, where they lived until my sister died.

My older brother, Arvin the of heartbeat between now and I, he worked at first one thing, then another. He worked at Chico, California, for a farmer, a grafting and putting on shrubbery and trees for a while. And, and he worked in a tree removal for a while, but he settled down working in one of these supply stations that my brother in law was in charge of at up by Sprague Washington.

He supply there for the town where he lived in was Lamont. And that's where the supply station was. He, operated this on the, pumps and stuff there and, providing various things that they supplied the trains with. And he lived there until his retirement. They moved to Spokane and his wife. And he died in Spokane. Well, let's.

Sam Schrager: Talk about your early years in the woods. When did you how did you come to start working in the woods?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, I started in my brother and I, we book. Well, yeah. My brother had first and 40 acres of land here on that or near Princeton, south of Princeton. And then he sold it and we together. But 80 acres and, from the lumber company and received a contract and long enough they it was their timber. They held the timber up, but they gave us a job so much per thousand of log off.

And, what we would do, we were to get to the river. River at Princeton any way that we could, which was usually about what they call go devils. A couple of runners and bunk across from one, and the logs set up on that and the other, and broke ground and fast machines and horses, of course, is what we used for power.

And so we spent about three winters logging. Yes. Well, I was too young to hire out for companies, and then we'd go over to Potlatch for spring and a high water ice break up the logs release where we and what was left of in the river and road and apology. And then after that, while I went to work in the woods, camp up around bow and oh, I worked at anything I could get for a little while there.

And they were having trouble all I booked for a while, nine donkeys for a while, and I ran Whiting engine and an engine on a donkey for loading cars a little bit. And, then I, I came a vacancy on the, a clerk and skinner. One man had to do the curtains, caring for the all the whole crew, sometimes on 100 men.

And they'd been having trouble getting clerks and scanners. They didn't know what to do. It was pretty hard job to get them so busy. So they gave me the job. I didn't know anything about it. And so she wrote me, help me out. And I managed to hold it until I learned it. And some nights I'd have to scale all day, during the day and then some nights at the end the month, I'd have to set up maybe 12, 1:00 fraternity nights, making out the payroll.

Writing out the checks is very difficult for me to lug around during and find that, so it was much easier. I could do it, but then eventually they changed the system. At that time, on our scale logs, and that all I had to do was just mark them any way that I could tell them there was no numbering or anything and just number them on the landing.

But then, they got to put more work on there. And, so then they got divided the of the scaling and they clerking and they'd have a clerk and a scalar in a camp, and the clerk would keep the books in. And I didn't like the clerking myself. So I kept getting over all I could. And so I took over gradually scaling, and I scaled logs.

That was a landing gear. And they kept increasing to finally had a scalar woods for the sawmill landing gear and a scalar on the marine when they get the thing. Everybody was a thousand. I worked at that for several years, and I worked at that until they began to shut down, during the winters and always before they had run started.

And so they just slog through the summer in good weather. And then I worked only get about three months, three, four months work a year, and I couldn't make a living for a family at that. And I scale the, no check schooner. I was a scale. The first logs, it was hard to catch. And so I had to turn that down.

And because I couldn't get any off working and I worked with my brother, Carpenter worked for about two years. It came on an opening for a mail carrier there at Princeton. There's about 18 of us applied, and I took the exam. And that in a way it was lucky, I guess, and it was only a tri weekly route at that time, on a three trips a week and very little money in it, so little that I know two trader houses in my yard for people to help make a little more money.

And then we also ran a few cattle and our kids was getting big enough by that time. Then the milk cows and we sold a little cream run thing. Not until the mail out got eventually longer and longer. Little. They got up enough so that I could make a living at it. And and I carried mail in for 25 years and until I retired in 1960.

Since then, I haven't did much work. My health hasn't been good enough to hold down a job, and. Don't do any hard work.

Sam Schrager: And you do a lot of woods crafts work.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, I have a pretty nice little woodworking shop. I have probably one of the best woodworking shops around, quite a lot of machinery and tools, and I, I do work a little repair work and I have some wonderful grandchildren. And they came and put in a couple of breaks new for me, and they put a metal roof on, my garage.

I have a real large garage and, three car size and size for shop and they put that on for me. I furnish the material. And then when their wives came and they were scratch, scratch, they all paid off my shop and off my house and repainted all they did all these things for nothing, wouldn't take anything for it.

And, so I want to do something for them when the boys want to make a helping make a gun cabinet. But he wasn't, didn't see and didn't get around to it. So I made the gun cabinet for him and then they I started in and I made a gun cabinet for each of the boys. I, I made one out of the front glass doors and the front was in drawers and everything were made out of white pine.

And the next one I made, one had knotty white pine in the front, and then the last one made out of birdseye pine. And, they furnished just the material, and and I did the work is quite a quite long, tedious job making them. And I let them do the finishing the painting and such as that. And I made window boxes for their granddaughters and such, and I made a water wheel for my daughter, and windmill for my wife.

And so I spend my time, spare time, working shop, things like that.

Sam Schrager: I want to get back to the scaling in the woods. You started talking about and didn't describe how it was done. Then when they were first scaling, you know, how was it that you you did scale, the logs there and when you first started?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Yes. Well, on the first started, I didn't scale them in the, in the woods this year. And so he was working with a day and the logs were on the scale once, and that was a little later. I was a little ahead of a stories later when they got to the point that a scale for the soldiers. No, they had to give Mark them anyway to tell, but at first you would just get them on the landing.

And then I cook, which was a very big job because they had 100 men in that camp that was coming and going all the time. But later then as they they used that situation up, but scaling of the logs, of course, that you do what they call a decimal. See, there's several others. There's a script here in the dial.

And one thing that they use, what they call a decimal, see, that gives one tenth of the scale you have to decipher on to to get the full scale. And you measure the distance inside the arc, one side of a log and the other. On average, you get the average size and and figure the length of it in your room.

And I'll tell you then for that length. But that size log, the number of board feet is supposed to soar out. And then you have to mark that on cards and carry you books and all the way through, and add that all up in the month and make up reports for the how much money board feet of logs they get out.

Sam Schrager: But when you say that you can scale it any way, what does that mean?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Every toy, every day, I think, probably misunderstood being that the average with, you know, sometimes around and sometimes it was sort of oval and if you scaled an arrow, you at the end of the log way, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be fair scale. Or if you scale the white way of it wouldn't be. So you take the average diameter, see the small end of the log and measured in each.

And well, you just look at the scale it tells you on the root. We'll see how much that that log will give. You have three report of a different color, what it gives you, how much. If it's a 12ft log of it's a 14 or 16 and 18 or 20. All those figures are on the group in a row for each one.

Sam Schrager: What did this change, at the time went on?

Hershiel A. Tribble: No, no I didn't, I don't I but I, you know, I to this day I believe they still use the same decimal rule. I don't know of course, eight years, but I think they still use the decimal rule.

Sam Schrager: How could one guy be expected to scale and, clerk at the same time? Scaling seems like a full time job.

Hershiel A. Tribble: It was a full time job. That's right. It was that. It didn't. It had been easy to scale the logs and day at that time, quite easily, because most of the logs were long. It was 32ft. See, now, your scale rule doesn't give a 32ft log of what you do. You take the, 216 figure 216, and we figure an average gain of one inch.

So a figure the second log, in most cases that don't apply to all kinds of timber, in most cases would figure the next inch put it in there to, to get it to find the scale of that particular log. So that is very fast, easy. ground line donkey doing your best would put out about 5 or 6 carloads of these logs.

And that wasn't too hard for one scale, but they'd be, donkey up on one spur. That was the railroad track, short railroad track. They run up, and then maybe another north down a mile or 2 or 3 and some other place get a little walking to do on that. And then you had to scale them on cards.

And then when you got in camp, you had to copy them in books, regular scale books. And then at the end of the month where you kept your time push, which wasn't that hard at the end, the month anyway, to make a payroll, write out all the checks, the men wrong with it. Well, I had to do that night.

It really was too much. And they paid a clerk and scaler. But a month number three. So they didn't have an you didn't get the over ten days.

Sam Schrager: But how did you learn how to clerk. how did they. Well and what did you need to know and how did they break you?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, that was kind of a stranger. They hadn't been off the charts short of clerks. This gives a good know, because that the foreman wanted me to take over. They've been having trouble with Turk. So you get one broke in there and the sport lecturer supposed to be clerking, and they'd quit or something, and they'd had all kinds of trouble.

And that was really bad, changing cards and all the time. So I was getting so hard that nobody wanted to scale for that camp rather than me. I had no profession of my own, and it was quite a thing for me. If I did it all. That job down and the foreman wanted me to, because he knew me real well, and I was a steady worker, and he thought maybe if I had it, why did I keep it?

So he, he gave me a big lingo. He said that I'd never been in the office there only to buy my tobacco. I smoked, and I had never been there before that. That's all I knew about office work. And he told me that he used to be a contractor on the. He was he and he had run gangs of men building railroads.

But he didn't tell me that he didn't have any education the hardest. And his own name. He didn't tell me that. He told me to help with the payroll. Then he told me that the auditor involved the correct minus. They called it, asked me if I made him, would help me, and he'd learn me a lot about handling the Kirkwood work.

And the truth of the matter was, let me go in, Bo. I'll not mention the name is a good little guy. And he was fine. He was quite good, but he never explained a thing. He just showed me where I made a mistake. Tell me what should have been done or what should have been or something. I didn't learn very much from it.

And another man was brought in to show me how to make out the skill reports, and he was pretty good. He helped, but by the time I skilled all day and worked night, it was just bad. I didn't know if I could possibly handle it or not, but the foreman, he, he didn't really have the right to hire Kirk and guarantee that come under the superintendent at that time.

And he told me he thought that if I could make it and he took the superintendent, I could get him to keep me, maybe. And they said unless they already had somebody hired. So it turned out they didn't already have somebody hired. And the superintendent agreed that I could stay. And so it didn't work. Gradually got easier for me all the time as I learned how to begin.

I was always pretty good in arithmetic and on making reports and adding payrolls and things. I was pretty fast at it. They didn't involve me very much. After regular practice. I made quite a few mistakes at first, but I'd get so eventually that hard and make a mistake and carry 30 names one inch you to the payroll, and maybe they'd change rate to pay for the hour in water three times that.

You'd have to figure out how many hours at this rate, how many hours the other rate. Then they charged him a dollar a month hospital ticket, and then they had to was the one again. They called a little store that I had operated to, where they sold stockings and shirts and pants and sold, putting out everything that they used and came charging up to him and and keep it.

And then if there's any deductions for contributions for things, why I keep that all that was deducted. But it wasn't too bad there. And finally as the camp got so when they required more, they, they begin to have the wood, the timber sort by the thousand and lots of times the corner, they had to be a scatter in the woods.

And first I took on some of that, and I just marked the logs. Anyway, I could show that they were scale. That's all I had to do now that was a big advantage, because sometimes I follow a tree up on a steep learning curve at the bottom, and if you have to climb that mountain just to put a number on that stump, if you scale it there, that's why you didn't see.

And so it went on that way for quite a while. And then all at once we got two orders that we had to number those so we can be checked on. And so then I had after number the tree, then number the stump. And that caused a lot more work and trouble. And I come to find out the reason for this it up in Elk River, there'd been two young skinners up there.

They're supposed to be 6000ft of logs in the woods. And when they got them in, there was only 3000 Sawyers had been picking them a little bit to slip them some extra scales so that the rest was. All I did was fire them to the boil, but the rest of it stayed there. We had to pay for course.

Then we had to start number nine and climb in the mountains. But the numbers on that, so that was a different number.

Sam Schrager: And it up the mountain or number two down and the landing.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, we had to correspond, you know, with the tree down there and neglect to give the stump the same number to show it come from that stump. See.

What did you.

Sam Schrager: Have that you checked.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Or. They had, regular checks. Taylor had probably the name of Jack Dunn unchecked. Most of the time I was there. And then there was a government man he had killed. He was. He was a real nice fellow. I was scared at first time he checked on me. I just thought, boy, that, you know, I didn't know much about it.

And I was trying to learn. And I was there shivering while I was waiting for him to check. And he came back, and he didn't say what he said. I told him, I said, I don't know. I said, I just I don't know what's in there. I think, lad, learn anything you can. I said, I don't know anything about this, which says, you done all right.

I said, and, and he went out real nice. He said, I just love it to that, he says, I just wondered, he says, what do you do that he says, I always say, sometimes opinions vary. You can't go to men to be just like them. And and maybe you run them and say, well, that's that's about what I done and nothing like that.

I give that a little bit more than you did, or I give it a little less than you did or something. Seen it say when I was in, you may be just near right as I am, I know you, you're just one of the nicest guys that I ever met. And he was always that way. Just like, get in check.

And he tell you so nice that you didn't feel like it, then recommended it off. And I learned really liking. And then one was a nice fellow to use the regular check man, but he came out. Oh, I don't know how to tell you how often they were. Ten days maybe. Or so. He made the round to the camp, you see.

But, you know, we always got along good there. The one I wanted to check today was really our boss man on a scale, but on the Kirkwood work way. The auditor really at the town was our boss over that. But then I finally, when they got started working by the thousand there, they called it contract. Now every month.

And they had to have a special scaler for scaling the woods. There was a, there wasn't too particular with that. It didn't have to match the landing scale, but they wanted to get a little like they didn't deduct for rate or anything just to start with there. And then later on they did. But as they began to put more and more on, like took more skaters, so they had a scooter in the woods.

And then I was a landing skater. My scale went back east to warehouse, just came back to Minnesota. Results. With the total load. And then they had one on the merry and just go on the pay the the Vancouver, the town. The three skaters were almost where in the end of the long road. Yes. It was killed at that, but I worked at scaling them for quite a number of years.

It, they, they went through some cycles when I first went to camp, they, you know, horses. They had what they call a ground donkey. They go out, oh, sometimes half a mile, some lines maybe longer. But that was considered a pretty long haul. It might not get it, but it that maybe 3000ft, I'd be a little over half mile.

But the they brought in the logs and the whole tree with holes for the landing and then they'd have landing on this donkey would hold it in your sales team. Donkey and they have landing sawyers in it. there's another little engine on that operated the same boiler as the big donkey did on that same platform. And, they would load it via the wire alignment, go up through a, block on a pole, and, go down in a cross unit with a hook on each end was cracked, and the man would take charge of each hook.

And when each one would take the hook in the end of logs, the same log. So you know what I mean. In one end, they're the man's ticket and the others. And then the hoisting engine, which they sent this log up in the trunk high enough to swing across the car. They drop it in the notches on the car.

That's how they loaded. And these hooks had ropes and mending on. And so all they had to pull hooks right back to them. That's the way they loaded and that's the way it was operated when I first went to camp. But then they brought in what they called the high lines and those they had the slide down slide show a white strip for these high lines.

The others, they didn't. And that they did this leisure quite a ride because they knocked trees down on top of it and, and, they'd bring them in on that and they England in the air. Now a lot of people didn't know they worked a whole lot like on, well, a whole lot like the old fashioned, carriers in the barn and the tracks that would work similar to those, although one, those the, the Hagler care up to the car and locks and then got back in the barn, whereas with the, high lines they call it, the, they don't never go up very seldom go catalogs, you know, dangle the

ends of the choker to the cable around them as families go up in the air high enough that they'll go that way, it takes them over wind and hauls and everything but the other end of them. Usually it touches the rail. It about long enough to go across a little draw, while even the other end leaves sometimes. But those are cut into long, short logs.

They're not three lengths. They bring them in, and then they got to using horses back there to break some of them down, or where the sideline could reach them. They can't reach out like how they do a continuous. They and they change lines and that to the load that way quite a while. And they have some high lines moving some ground like donkeys in the camp.

And then they had some small rigs, slides they call them, I believe it had a small and they looked like a donkey engine, an upright engine on them, and they'd have a short line. I don't remember how far out they'd go. They generally wouldn't go over. I don't think, or they could work quite a way, but I didn't know it was long, just around 100 or 2ft from the track, and they could put them on pretty cheap that way, because it didn't take a minute to do what you see.

And, and that they and the big outfit, you know, they're too close for them to work on them anyway. They use that method. Then they did, use caterpillars for a while. They had one, one camp up here, not far from where I live, that, there's all caterpillars. I scale for that, too. When I was getting. That's not the same time.

The others, of course it moved, but it. I scale it down here toward home. And we got a lot along this part of the country. And then a little later on with the cats and horses, they got into horses and horses getting short folks, and they called them in on what they call a bomber. It was, like if you saw two blocks of that fairly large round log, and then they drill a hole through the center and put them on an axle, and they two big blocks, they use them for wheels, and then they'd have a bunk across the go, their timber from one to the other.

They put the logs, end them up on them, just like they did to go. There was on some overalls. No one chain them there and then back in drag on the ground. And that's what they all in there were funny looking thing and pretty clumsy, but they that's where they are most they're log right close and they might just get in the trunk.

Then the log was that for a long time they did that pretty much all I started see until I retired. Not quite because they got to going into the trucks and finding like a log today and they got to using them quite a little bit, and they found out they didn't have to run this track, and they don't have to go with the donkey and all those things, and they can get the contract out to the man, let them worry about their trucks and everything.

And, so they started logging with them. And this man killed it, I said was a tactic or he and I, we scare off down here at the Potlatch Dam for the, the first summer that they loaded with these, trucks of the other. But then I quit because I could no longer get work, only just in the summer.

That's the only time I could use those outfits, and it shut out and things, and I couldn't work. And, then they began going into the trucks, and I started in. I worked at carpenter work for a little bit until the main road opened up. But, so that was the last I did the logging. But now then, of course, it all.

It was no big logging trucks, every place, no miles.

Sam Schrager: And you scale and you cleared for one camp, right?

Hershiel A. Tribble: Well, I look for scale or cook for 2 or 3 cans at different times, but it.

Sam Schrager: Was one.

Hershiel A. Tribble: Camp, one at a time. Well, now I came up for two camps, down here at home because a while there I had them one camp and then, while I was part of it. There's two of us scooters there at that time of scale for part and and the skill for the set caterpillar camp over here, too, for a while.

Sam Schrager: But where's your family living down here? While you were working up there?

Hershiel A. Tribble: My family always lived down there all the time.

Sam Schrager: So you just got back down to see them?

Hershiel A. Tribble: okay. That's right. I didn't go down very often. Now, I'll tell you, I got on well. My brother in law worked up there. He had a car, and I didn't really come down on the weekend. We'd come down there and we didn't have very long weekend, you know, we'd have.