Old David Ward

DESCRIPTION: Singer describes working in a lumber camp for David Ward, including a thieving foreman, an unpleasant employer, and a crooked scaler. The singer vows to leave and not return.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan)
KEYWORDS: work lumbering logger nonballad
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan 115, "David Ward" (1 text)
Beck-SongsOfTheMichiganLumberjacks 14, "Old David Ward" (1 text)
Beck-TheyKnewPaulBunyan, pp. 230-33, "Old David Ward" (1 text)
Beck-LoreOfTheLumberCamps 117, "Old David Ward" (1 text)
Roud #6498
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Lumber Camp Song" and references there
cf. "The Rigs of the Times" (lyrics)
NOTES [209 words]: David E. Ward lumbered much territory north of Cadillac, Michigan; a small island village in the Manistee River, "Deward," is named for him. - PJS
Bruce Catton, Michigan, A History, 1972, 1976 (I use the 1984 Norton edition), pp. 106-107, has a brief summary of how Ward became a force in the timber industry. He was a "land-looker" or a "timber-cruiser" -- that is, someone who scouted the woods of Michigan looking for quality pine groves suitable for logging. In 1854, he found a good pine stand "far up between the headwaters of the Manistee and Au Sable rivers, which was a long, long way from anywhere in those days" -- but, being by the rivers, was a place where logging could take place. Ward believed another land-looker, Addison Brewer, had also found the spot, so Ward had to somehow get back to Detroit to raise the money to register and pay for the find, then get to the land office in Ionia, Michigan. So he hikes eighty miles through un-tracked forest, then paddled eighty miles to Saginaw, went from there to Detroit to get the money, made an eighteen-hour coach run to Lansing, caught a stage to Ionia, and registered his claim. It took him more than a week, but he won the race -- and his reputation as a hard driver was established. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.2
File: Be014

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