He said he had a nice young team he would <page 61> like for me to take out and if I felt like going to work to come back as things was looking quite favorable for a busy summer.  Oh, yes one thing I wish to mention before leaving Lebanon neighborhood that was where I met my future wife, but she was a bit shy and did not get acquainted very fast.  But some of my friends found out I was leaving so they’ got up a dance and that made me show my hand and getting on a saddle horse I rode over to their farm and her to go to the dance with me.  She said she would go.  I hired a team and buggy from the livery stable in Lebanon and we arrived o.k.  We were all from the same community, but I had not been in that part of the country long enough to be very well acquainted.  We had a fine time and a big feed at midnight.  We did not leave our host until after day light.  The next morning everbody was tired, but happy.  All the county dances lasted the whole night in them times, so we had not violated any rules of county society and we went away with a clear conscience.  There is one more story though.  hardly worth mention, but it was rather a peculiar collection of circumstances that brought  <page 62>.this bold bad act to a focus.  There was two young fellows living near our place who must have been reading cowboy stories or detective or perhaps Billy-The-Kid.  They got the notion in their heads to be tough.  There was a old fellow lived about a half a mile from us who ran a harness shop in the back end of his house.  One of these tough guys come along from Lebanon one evening just before dark.  He was driving a two horse buggy and he called the old man out.  He had rheumatism so bad he could hardly get around but came out and just as he was getting near the rig this would be tough jumped out of the rig and grabbed him by the throat with his left hand and jerked his gun out of his pocket with his right hand and struck the old man over the head hard enough to knock him down and left him laying in the mud.  His head was cut and his shoulder bruised as one blow landed on his shoulder.  We were the nearest neighbor to this old harness maker but did not hear about this until the next day.  As soon as we got the news I went do see if he needed any help of any kind.  He was up and tinkering <page 63> around his work bench repairing some harness.  He looked pretty bad and my guess was he did not feel so hot.  He said there was no reason that he could think of to cause the attack.  The old fellow told me this much.  He said, when the fellow started away after knocking him down that’s only a sample of what some of your neighbors is going to get some of these days.  Well, we were the nearest so I just put two and two together and found myself wondering what the h> !  Personally, I had only a speaking acquantainance with the two fellows and had nothing whatever against them.  I did not wish to raise any disturbance or cause any trouble so I asked a few questions of some of my friends and it began to come to light to a certain extent they picked a quarrel one day in the county road in front of our house with a boy about nineteen years old and they were going to take him off from his horse and beat him up.  He was fighting them off the best he could so father happened along and told them that they should be ashamed of themselves, two grown men picking on a boy so there was <page 64> nothing more said or done about it.  Maybe that was in their minds.  So, the best thing for me would be to stick around for a few days as my father was not very large and one of his friends said those fellows thought you had too much fun at the dances and they told someone that they thought I was stuck-up so that was reason number 2 why they might want to take one of us apart.  The next day there was something going on at the school house and it being only a short distance I walked up and there was some young folks on horses overtook me and among them was this bad boy who had come in from a side road a short distance west of our place and a few minutes after overtaking me the subject of the gun play come up and among other things that was said he repeated his threat to club someone else over the head in the near future.  It was a hundred to one bet that the next victim would be me.  So I said that’s the stuff boy go to it and good luck to you.  But of course there is always some risk involved in a game of that kind you know.  I saddled one of dad’s horses the next morning and went to Albany and I did not tell anybody my <page 65> business.  There was no bad interest in my mind but I had a scheme that I was pretty sure would work in this particular case.  Upon arriving in Albany I went into a second-hand store and bought and old Smith and Wesson double action revolver and a bon of cartridges and went back home.  Kept my secret and waited for results and it was not long.  Just before dark they went by going towards Lebanon and about eleven O’clock our dog began barking and I had not gone to bed.  So by going out on the backporch I could see quite a distance.  Up towards dthe schoolhouse just before they arrived directly in front of the house I slipped across to the other end or the West end of the house and kept in the shadows.  They stopped and began shooting through the fence into our yard and they were having lots of fun and when they had emptied their guns I loosened my old rusty gun and of all the running anybody ever seen them poor old horses did it.  The slugs from that old rusty gun went through the air whistling as I had taken my pocket knife and cut from the point back towards the shell just enough to raise a small <page 66> shaven and just left them rough and was aiming about twenty five feet above their heads and that made it sound bad.  Everything was quiet after that.  It was the middle of the week and we did not see them until Sunday, they went by quiet and acted like any other civilized person would.  However, I had not had enough fun yet.  In the afternoon I started over to my uncles place and before reaching the road that went to my uncle’s place they came in sight.  They were playing a waiting game coming very slow.  I reached the side road first and waited to see what would happen if they were going to beat me over the head with a six-shooter they would have to do the job this very day because my job with Mr. Lyons would not wait only a day or two longer as they expected me back about the first of the week.  I stood by the side of the road with head in the air and both hands in my hip pockets.  When they were about one hundred yards away they put the spurs to their horses and went by on the dead run.  As they went by I bowed and shouted how do you do gentlemen <page 67>  They never made a sound but that this happened about March of 1892.  This stopped the rough stuff around there.  I went over to my uncles’ and spent the evening and next morning bid my folks goodbye and pulled out for Portland.  The boss had took a contract to furnish some telephone poles for the Columbia Telephone Company and had bought some poles from a man out near Lents on Johnson Creek.  They had been taken out of the brush and put in a pile out on a dirt road and the fellow who was supposed to haul them fell down on the job, and the fellow who yarded them out of the brush wanted his money out of them, so Mr. Lyons bought them and we delivered them to the new telephone company.  After we delivered them we received two rafts of poles from the lower Columbia and we had a bunch of bad poles in fact some turned out to be culls.  One evening before we were through delivering these two rafts he called me into his office and said you had better go to Clatskanie tomorrow and stay there until that raft is made up.  Inspect every pole as we cannot afford to pay towage on cull poles, besides we need this raft as soon <page 68>  as it will be possible to get it.  You can send me a telegram as soon as it is ready and we will send the boat immediately.  It was not possible to send a telegram from any landing on the Oregon side of the river without going to Astoria and no way to get there only by boat.  Oak Point, Washington was the only place.  I hired a horse and rode over to the nearest boat landing which happened to be Maygers and I hired a fish boat and paddled across to Oak Point.  Never had much experience rowing a boat and made hard of it.  The trip took all day and it left me dog tired.  I stayed another week and they were just finishing the last raft.  That would finish what they had agreed to put in and I left for Portland.  We finished up the contract with Columbia Telephone Company for that fall.  Another job fell into his lap, he went on a fellows bond who took a contract from a Chinese firm to get out a ship load of piling on the bank of the Willamette at a point near the old Redhouse or the Whitehouse Road, and the Chinese ship was to pick them up there.  The ship was the Coloma a medium sized ship.  The man who took the contract knew nothing of getting piling out of <page 69> the bush, someone told him he needed high wheels or big wheels, anyhow he tried it out but it was not suitable ground for working big wheels, besides they knew nothing about using them but they tried and the second or third day the man that was taking a leading part had the misfortune of breaking his leg and they then gave up the job.  He being the bondsman it was up to him to see the job through.  That evening he called me into his office and said I want you to take the horse and buggy in the morning and go out to the old Redhouse on the Whitehouse Road.  You turn to the right there and go over the ridge.  There you will see where they have been cutting piling.  You look the job over and see what equipment will be needed to get them out.  Find some place to keep the horses and board and lodging for the men.  We will have to step on it to get them before the weather get bad.  He said you can take the old horse and buggy and drive in and out.  That way you can see what is going on in the woods and at the landing.  We just barely beat the time limit on getting the material out.  We finished just before Thanksgiving and we were glad when it was finished.  We hauled a few light poles that winter for Portland Railway Light and Power Company <page 70> I figure that that year came under the heading of logging as most of the year was spent on telephone poles and piling and light poles.  We furnished some 12” top light poles for the line between Oregon City and Portland.  Some of them were brought from the Johnson Creek district.  This work was done about the latter part of 1892.Wilson and Ryne had a big sewer contract on the East side and Mr. Lyons had the contract of furnishing the sand and gravel for that job and it took most of the summer to do it.  I had a couple of outside jobs.  Detrick and Hiney had a job in Oregon City building the Eastham school up on Seventh Street near Ealyville.  They bought the lumber from Inman and Poulson in Portland and it was shipped on a barge.  He told me to take two teams and two lumber wagons and get all the material up to the building site.  We got there and made one trip when the chief of police stopped me and asked if we had a license to pick-up and haul material on the streets of Oregon City?  I told him we did not think it was necessary to get a license as the material came from Portland by barge and we unloaded under the bridge approach  <page 71> and delivered it to the building sight.  We told him we had hauled several loads of lumber from Portland and there never had been any questions ask before and this lumber had come from Portland and our own crew had loaded and our own crew was unloading it.  I was acquainted with George C.  Brownell one of the leading attorneys of the county at that time.  While my partner watched the team I went to see George.  He said just explain the whole thing to me.  That was the reason for being in his office and it took some time to tell all.  When my story was finished he said now do the job this way.  When you take the lumber off from the barge load it on the wagon, don’t pile anything on the street.  If you do it that way they cannot make you take out a license under the present law and by the time they can change the law you will have your job finished.  We drove away with our loads and the next morning we used his system and had no more trouble.  We finished up and went into Portland and in a few days Al Lambert, he was interested in the East Side Bank, they had advanced some money to start a furniture factory in the old paper mill building just above <page 72> Park Place on the Clackamas River and he had to take over or bought the thing out.  I do not know the details, anyhow he wanted a team and furniture wagon to move stuff out and take it to the Oregon City Transportation Company dock and have it shipped to Portland.  Mr. Lyons told me to be ready to go the next morning.  When Mr. Lambert came he had his attorney with him, his name was Showers and if my memory serves correctly he was the Prosecuting Attorney for Multnomah County.  I believe they expected some kind of trouble because Showers took a gun out of a brief case and put it in his pocket and it aroused my curiosity anyhow there was no serious delay.  By the time I had found a place to keep the team and a room for myself they had finished their affairs and told me to start in on the moving.  He and Showers left for Portland on the afternoon train.  It took about three days to do the job.  It was in the month of June and we had began to think about the Fourth of July and I had ask for a few days vacation.  The boss said there is one more job for you taking some things from the Catholic Institute out East of Mount Tabor to Park Place near <page 73> Oregon City and you had better take the truck as there will be some heavy packages to load.  I went out there and put on my load and by the time I got to Park Place and unloaded it was pitch-dark and no lights and my mind was made up to go back to Oregon City and stay all night but the old fellow that the Catholic Sisters had made arrangements for me to stay all night and believe me that suggestion met with my approval because I was very tired and hungry as a she-wolf.  They gave me a big steak dinner and all the trimmings for a first class meal.  They gave me a large room and a good bed.  The next morning I woke early and feeling fine.  I had one more trip to make and after a fine breakfast started back to Montavilla for my last trip.  We got loaded and went into the barn and stayed till morning and got an early start, everything went along all right until I got past Milwaukee.  They had been doing some work on the road and it had been used a few times by light farm wagons and of course it was too narrow for the the old fashioned drop axle truck that we used for moving heavy equipment of all kinds.  The bottom of the bed was <page 74> about twelve inches from the ground and the tread of the wheels on the truck was much wider than the standard vehicle and I started through and when the hind wheel hit the soft dirt the team could not pull it any further.  I had a shover and a jackscrew and some hemp rope and one wooden block, so I had to do some digging and some hooktending.  I jacked the wheel up out of the soft dirt and took some rails from a farmers fence and put them under the wheel and put the block on the end of the tongue of the truck and put the end of the line around a stump and a hitch on to the other end of the line and hoped for the best.  When the team settled in their collars good the load started but I could only go about four feet on any one pull as I had to keep that one hind wheel up out of the soft dirt and the only way to do that was to bring the rails forward and put them under again.  That fracas set me back about two hours, but I got through finally and had no more bad luck.  I arrived at Park Place about 1 P.M., about two hours late.  We had a good lunch and unloaded and was ready to start back about 3 P.M., arrived in Portland about 7 P.M., <page 75> The old fellow who helped me unload and was a roustabout around the Catholic Institute asked me what church I belonged to and I told him none.  He looked surprised and said nothing more about religion, in our talk however I told him my belief was that all religion was good if one lived up to what religion teaches, but for one to be a hypocrite was worse than no belief atall and as far as it concerned me that is still my belief.  I believe in a supreme being and a ruler of the universe.  When the boss came in the next morning he grinded and said I guess I have to move you to Oregon City as most of your work is up that way lately.  That was Saturday morning and he said you had better put the seat in the furniture wagon this afternoon as there will be a bunch of your friends here in the morning and they want you to take them up on the Clackamas River for a picnic somewhere between Park Place and Baker’s bridge.  They said you knew where to go.  They were there early next morning and we started about 7 A.M. A nice cool morning and we arrived about 10:30 A.M.  Had a nice trip.  They had a guitar player and some good singing on the way up <page 76> Everything went fine with one exception, it seemed that one couple had a lovers quarrel about something during the day and the rest of the crowd knew nothing about it.  This young sprout kept his secret until we were about half way home.  He pulled a gun out of his pocket and started shooting rather recklessly and I was driving a fractious team and they were not accustomed to so much hilarity and the kept me very much on the anxious seat for some distance.  It might have proved fatal but I finally got them quiet and stopped.  We had an understanding right now.  Two of the fellows had hold of him and one fellow took the lines while I went back and interviewed the broken-hearted boy.  We took possession of his gun and confiscated what was left of his half pint of whiskey which he had sneaked in though they had agreed there would be no hard liquor taken on this picnic.  We had no more noise and arrived safe and sound.  The young lady apologized for her boyfriends rash act as she called it, of course a gun and a bottle of whiskey is not a good diet for a bunch <page 77> of young folks when there is so many out for a good time.  Yours truly did not get much of a thrill either out of the racket, it is bad enough to have to face a gun, but worse still to have one open fire just behind you when you are so busy you cannot look around to see what is going on.  I took a short vaction a friend of mine by the name of Noah Stringley spent the Fourth of July at Currinsville.  He had a buckskin pony and another friend had a cart.  I borrowed the cart and we left Portland about 8 P.M., on the third.  We got out past Lents and we were getting tired and sleepy, so we decided to stop and take a nap.  We unhitched the pony and tied him to a bush and there was a field of new mowed hay just over the fence.  We fed the little horse some hay and spread some out on the ground and went to bed.  We had a lap robe to put over us.  So soon was sound asleep.  We did not intend to stay there very long but when we woke up it was just about day break and the mosquitoes had given us some attention and both of our faces felt like a chunk of sole leather.  We stopped at the first creek and bathed our faces and put on a little low grade whiskey and by the time we got to Currinsville we were in the pink of condition and had a good time and <page 78> attended the dance at the hall that night.  We went back to Portland the Fifth of July and the team worked the rest of the summer.  Was mostly sand and gravel and considerable lumber.  We hauled lumber from three different mills.  Inman and Poulson mill, James mill, and Pennoyer mill.  That work continued the balance of the year, except a few odd jobs that came along.  One of them was a carload of spars that somewhere back East I think it was Philadelphia.  There was only four of the long ones.  We took them out of the water at the foot of East Alder Street and loaded them on cars at the old North Pacific Mill.  We had to look for open corners so we could turn corners where there was no building because the overhang was quite a problem.  It took three forty-foot cars in length to load them.  The Oregonian at the time had a article in the paper about the Oregon Tooth Picks being hauled through the streets and shipped East.  We crossed Morrison Street Bridge and went out Morrison Street where we could turn and then straight as it was possible to go from there to the siding at the mill and I happened to be the one that had to take them over there and load them on the cars.  This was one of the things that happened to come my way that’s all <page 79> There was nothing unusual happened the rest of the year.  The year was about gone so we were thinking about Christmas on December 21 I left Portland on the night train headed for Eugene.  My girlfriend and her family had moved to Coburg and I wanted to see the little city of Eugene as it had been about twenty six years since we had passed through there with our covered wagon.  There had been many changes taken place.  I arrived there late in the night and went to a hotel.  Next, I hired a fellow to drive me over to Coburg.  Christmas Eve we hired a team from a man by the name of Holt who ran a livery stable there and we went to Eugene and done some Christmas shopping.  Out old logger friend Clay Parker afterwards married M. Holts’ daughter.  The Odd Fellows gave a big dance and a supper the 24th and everybody had a good time.  Had a hall full.  I played a few tunes on the violin in my younger years so by helping the musicians out it gave me a chance to get acquainted with some of the older folks who liked to sit around the platform and listen to the music.  Bill Naylor was there, most of the old timers knew him, and he was a great fellow.  I got to know him very well later. <continued>