Logging crew, including Daniel O. Sjolseth, with road donkey and turn of logs — circa 1899 — #6202_3
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Photograph Copyright Anderson & Middleton Company
United States — Washington (State) — Hoquiam
James Stewart Logging Co.
Captions identify the image as Sjolseth & Moe's Camp, South Arbor, Hoquiam, Wash. Photo by Nelson.
Daniel O. Sjolseth was one of the owners of this logging company. Thanks to his great-grandson, Jan Oddbjørn Kolmann Johnsen, in Groa Norway for providing this information, as well as the following two memoirs written by his great-grandfather (translated from Norwegian):
"THE IMMIGRANT"
When the boat left the country, it was a farewell to old Norway for this time, maybe for the last time. A farewell to parents, brothers and sisters, and others deeply loved. Day and night we travelled towards the land in the west. Then passing the prairie and through the woods in the wide country. Men from many countries drifted along in the stream of immigrants. The final station was by the Pacific Ocean. There was enough food in the logging camp, but a 10-hours working day before any rest. The payment was not the best, but it became better as the years went by. The work with the enormous trees was heavy, but with help of steam and cables the timber was taken out. Not easy with the language, because there were men of many tongues. We could go to the city for a drink, experience a wild life with card playing and dancing. There I came to know other Norwegians, mostly industry workers, fishermen and farmers.
In the woods with the vast areas it could become lonely and sad. Day after day in the hard struggle with work and hardship, the mind could get dark. Now and then we went to see the ocean. We were sitting on the beach, looking at the horizon and gazing at the waves rumbling ashore. The ocean was mighty. The thoughts went to the land where we had our cradles. As in a foggy dream I saw fjords and valleys shimmering by. The memories drifted through me, and I felt it in my soul. I imagined an old mother when the boat left, lonely at the shore. Eyes wet, hearts aching bidding farewell, silent prayers inside. The old home and fatherland was never forgotten. But all this was so far away from our daily struggle.
The new country was free and prosperous and gave a future home for many. But for others it became hard, roaming around without any aim, without learning the language. In the struggle, they found their graves too early. But this is how life is, the path of destiny no one knows. I felt life as great and rich, but the daily struggle took the poetry out of my dreams and mind. All I have now are the memories, good and bitter from years passed by. The spring of youth with light feelings, shall follow us in the destiny of our lives. And in the end, dear and happy memories of a time that came - but then vanished again.
"SOME MEMORIES AND NOTES" by Daniel O. Sjolseth, the 27th of January 1924.---
"On June the 10th 1896 at 19 years old - I went to America on the ship named PARISIAN, in the Dominion Line. The weather was fairly good, and the journey went well. From Montreal I travelled on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and I finally arrived in Seattle in July. Here I met my brother Gunder and continued together with him towards Hoquiam. The first half year there was not much work to get, since times were bad. Because of this I stayed on a claim owned by Gunder close to Humptulips City. There I worked for food. Finally I was employed by my brother Erik, who now owned a logging camp at Hoquiam River. I worked for him on and off for several years. The pay was not very high those days. I started at $1.75, increasing to $2.50 as times got better. Hoquiam was not a very big city yet, with approximately 1500 inhabitants. Some of the city streets were made of planks two feet above the ground. Most of the streets were plain grasslands and during floods the water was one foot deep. This made it very hard to use the streets. Hoquiam in those days was a typical frontier town. The inhabitants were mainly lumbermen, sawmill workers and sailors, and people were restless and changeable. Leisure activities were card games and drinking. There were few Norwegians in Hoquiam those days, but more were soon to come. In 1898 I bought the rights to 160 acres of woodland from Sivert Andersen, which I took on homestead. But I didn't get a deed on this until 1910 because I got into a process about this land with another part, and it was a long lasting and expensive affair. But finally I won the land, and later I sold it for $9,000. In 1900 I got a deed on 160 acres of timber land in Coos County, Oregon. In 1904 I sold this to Erik, my brother. Until 1900 I worked in the logging camps for day money, and after that I also started to take contracts together with others. Consequently I participated in wood clearance where the Northern Pacific Railway was built from Grass Creek to Chenois Creek, a distance of 2 miles. In 1902 and 1903 I carried out several minor logging contracts at Hoquiam River. In 1904 I bought my brother Erik's part in the Sjolseth Logging Co., and my brother Johan and Gunnar Holst were my partners. We had a logging camp at East Hoquiam River, and we logged there for two years. After finishing there, Holst sold out his part in the company, and my brother Gunder and Erik Moe bought themselves in. From now on the company was called Sjolseth & Moe logging Co. Our first work was at Chenois Creek, where we worked for three years, until 1909. That year we moved to Laury Creek where we built a camp and took out lumber for 2 years. Then our logging activities had a break for a period of time. In June 1909 I travelled to Norway, and I was married in the same year to Olga P. Overaas. We went back to Washington in March 1910 and settled down in Hoquiam where we bought a house on Soule Avenue. Here our three daughters, Bertha, Annie and Dagny were born. We lived in this house for five years, and then we moved to Maple Street. In 1911 Erik Moe and I bought 2 properties on 7th Street in Hoquiam. One with a habitable house, and the other with a commercial building. We had them both rented out. Later we also bought a farm together near the city of Oakville. 149 acres altogether. 80 acres were cultivated grasslands and 10 acres were fruit orchards. The houses were old. The main house was big with many rooms, and had earlier served as accommodation for travellers before the railway was built through the area. The situation of the farm was very attractive, and we had it hired out most of the time. We also managed to make considerable improvements to the soil. As time went by, Erik Moe and I found our partnership not so satisfactory, and we decided that Erik could have the farm and I got the properties on 7th Street, Hoquiam. In 1918 I sold them. In 1911 I also bought a building on 9th Street, Hoquiam. There were two different compartments, a laundry and rooms for ironing. One of the compartments I hired out to a Negro, and the other to a Chinese. The Chinese was a good lodger and he always paid punctually. The Negro was eventually told to leave, as it was difficult for him to pay the rent. Instead, I got a true Bolshevik, and after having put himself in debt by not paying the rent, he ran away and I never saw him again. In 1914 I took over 4 buildings in the city of Aberdeen on a mortgage bond I had taken in this property several years earlier. I ran these for accommodation for some years. There were no less than 12 flats (each with three rooms) in every house. But as times got worse and my business became less prosperous, I sold the houses. I had had enough of this kind of business. In 1915 Sjolseth & Moe Logging Co. bought some lumber at Hoquiam River, and we took it down in 2 years. After having finished this work we sold our machinery and equipment and thought about quitting for good. It was a time of war with strikes and other disturbances. Business was a risky activity, and there were high taxes on profit. I can remember that we paid no less than $7,000 in income tax this year. Personally, I had various things to attend to, so I was rather pleased to sell out and quit at this time. But in 1918 I started up again. A new company was formed and we called it The Hoquiam Spruce Co. This time my brother Gunder, Ole Moe and Ingebrikt Melkild were my partners. We got a contract from the Government in order to take out lumber for the Army's aeroplanes. We started to buy machines and equipment, and we built a camp. We had finished all preparations to take out the timber when the peace came, and we were ordered to stop working. Later we sold our machines, so this was the last work I carried out in the woods in Washington. Usually, we had a 30 - 40 man workforce, and 4 steam engines going, each from 60 to 100 horsepower. We dragged the timber up to 11,000 feet at the most, and to manage this, no less than 33,000 feet of steel wire were needed. We also used up to 10,000 feet of water pipes. Altogether I was involved in the building of 7 logging camps. We took out about 105 million board-feet of timber, which means 90 - 100,000 logs worth approximately $1,000,000. We built 75,000 feet of timber track to pull the logs on, and altogether we cleared about 5 English square miles of woodlands. In 1917 I was not very busy, and I happened to buy a piece of land of about 8 acres just outside Hoquiam. I cleared a part of it, thinking about making a hen farm out of it. But, when we decided to go to Norway, I sold the land. We also had a house on the Pacific Coast which was called Sunset Beach, and we stayed there for a while during the summer as it was not so hot. There was a Pacific breeze coming in almost all the time, and it was very nice and pleasant to stay there. The ocean was rolling in on the flat beach, and the booms from the waves could be heard miles away. But, as we left and could not use the house any more, we sold it. The fact that I bought this number of properties was due to my speculations. I thought that Hoquiam and the surrounding areas were going to have a prosperous future, with increasing prices, so that selling out property would give profitable opportunities. This proved to be wrong. Surely the city grew, but the prices did not increase. And there were two reasons: Firstly, the taxes on property increased rapidly, and secondly, there were several others keeping their properties for the same purpose as I did. So when these entered the market, they kept it glutted and prices were pushed down. So - eventually, property speculations proved to turn out the wrong way. On the other hand I found it more profitable to give loans on mortgage bonds, as they usually gave an interest of 8%. I gave considerable loans on these. Besides I gave loans on Automobile contracts, and on these I could earn 10%. I also had saving and loan affairs going, and these paid an interest of 7 - 8%, so I used these to some extent. It had to be considered as a good interest compared to the banks which only paid 3 - 4%. If I only had dealt with these kinds of affairs, I could have saved many thousands of dollars. But, I also happened to start speculating in stocks, and that went badly. I bought many different stocks, and I lost most money from bank stocks. Ship and shipbuilding stocks ate up considerable amounts, and so did industry, mining and oil stocks. This was an expensive experience, but it will probably be of some use for me in the future. Hoquiam grew from 1500 inhabitants to 11,000 during the years I stayed there and its appearance changed a lot. It got paved streets and big business buildings made of brick walls. The city changed from a pioneer town to a modern city. On April the 10th we said goodbye to friends and acquaintances in Hoquiam, and it was with different feelings I probably saw the city for the last time after having had good and bad days there for 24 years. My whole family was actually on its way to Norway, and in Seattle we met my brother Johan and we said goodbye to his family there. We travelled on the Milwaukee Railway to Chicago and continued on the Pennsylvania Railway to New York. After staying there for some days, we travelled onboard BERGENSFJORD and arrived in Bergen on May the 3rd. After a fine journey we came to Oksendal on May the 10th 1920. We lived at Mosbo farm for a year, and later we bought Sjolsethbakken and moved there on the 20th of May 1921.
