The Bell with a Connection

If you read the parent (one notch up in the hierarchy) of this page, you will know that the cable at Pino Grande dropped lumber-loaded rail cars from the north side of the American River to the south side of the American River, a horizontal distance of 2814 feet. The bottom of the sagging cable was 1200 feet above the river. The mill up on the north bank of the river sawed logs that were brought into the mill by rail. There was a going-no-where-else railroad up on that site that delivered the logs from the woods to the mill.

The lumber cut there was loaded on to flat cars, the loaded cars were put on a trolley device which descended by cable to the rail facility on the south bank. The cars were then taken by another section of rail to the mill in Camino.

The Logging Museum has been given a bell off  Shay Locomotive Number 8 (or the “Eight Spot”, as it was known in the woods. The Eight Spot delivered logs from the woods to the mill. It was purchased new by the Eldorado Lumber Company, the predecessor of Michigan California Lumber Company. It was used in the woods and at the Pino Grande sawmill continuously from 1906 to 1950 when the logging railroad was scrapped.

The bell was given to Swift Berry, the General Manager, at the time, of the Michigan California Lumber Company. The grandson of Swift Berry, Mr. Philip Berry inherited the bell, and when he found out that the Logging Museum’s Shay Number 4 had come with a non-Shay bell, he donated Eight Spot’s bell to be used on Number 4.

The Sierra Nevada Logging Museum is delighted to receive, and grateful to Mr. Berry for the gift of the bell and also money for repairing the broken handle of the bell. Because the bell is so interrelated to the history of his family, giving us the bell was a truly remarkable gesture.

The information, and also many of the words and details, came from notes given to us by Mr. Berry, edited by your webmaster.

Mr. Phillip Berry’s grandfather, Swift Berry, had a very interesting life, involving his training at the Biltmore School of Forestry, his career prior to becoming General Manager of the Michigan California Lumber Company, and his  long career there in Eldorado County. Hopefully before too long, we’ll get his biography up on our web site. And here it is:

SWIFT BERRY BIOGRAPHY

 The Sierra Nevada Logging Museum has requested a biography of my grandfather Swift Berry. The organization E. Clampus Vitus has established historical monuments all over California. During his lifetime, they erected a monument to Swift Berry on Broadway in Placerville. The monument reads:

Swift Berry “Mister Clamper”

Born Nebraska 1887. Educated Biltmore Forest School North Carolina.

Began career 1908 in California with USFS

Major U.S. Army A.E.F. 1917 – 1919

Michigan California Lumber Co. 1928 – 1949

California State Senator 1953 – 1960

We salute our esteemed Clamp Patriarch and Clamp Proctor, Historian, Forester, Banker and Tireless Civic Leader.

A “MAN TO MATCH OUR MOUNTAINS”

That covers some major points, but there is so much more to the story. Swift Berry was born in 1887 in a sod house on a homestead near Tecumseh in Nebraska. His parents were homesteaders. (In those days people could take possession of a certain amount of vacant government property as a homestead. If they lived on the Homestead and farmed it for seven years they became owners of the Homestead.) It was a very hard, uncomfortable and lonely life for his parents. Sod houses were very damp and unhealthy in the harsh Nebraska winters. While Swift was still a young boy both of his parents died. Because he was then an orphan he and his younger brother had to live with his grandmother. While he was in high school he got a job skidding logs with horses to a saw mill in Deadwood, South Dakota. Several times he stated to me, with his customary understatement, “Deadwood was a very lively town in those days!” In 1905, the United States Forest Service was created by the federal government. Prior to 1905 federal forest holdings had been called forest reserves and managed by the General Land Office. February 1, 1905 was the date of the transfer and can be said to be the date of the start of the Forest Service. Swift began his employment with the Forest Service on that date, so it can be said he started work on the first day the Forest Service came into existence. The Black Hills National Forest was designated in South Dakota. They needed to hire employees. Many of the locals applied for jobs, but the Forest Service was very small then and only a few employees were needed. The Forest Service devised a test of the applicant’s abilities. It included such things as being able to accurately fall a tree and hit a stake 30 feet away, as well as being able to confidently pack and lead a pack horse, etc. Swift was the best applicant and got the job. He was soon promoted to Assistant Forest Ranger. He then was given his own Ranger District, about 200 square miles in size, the Little Spearfish District. As District Ranger of the district he had charge of the Forest Service activities in the district. The South Dakota forests had suffered an epidemic of bark beetles and a large number of Western Pine trees had been killed. There were three saw mills cutting the dead trees as well as several operators hewing railroad ties, as well as some cordwood cutters. He was kept busy marking trees to be cut and measuring the cut timber. When he started, it was cold there and one day the temperature reached minus forty-seven degrees. In September he took an examination to become a permanent District Ranger, which he passed. Right after that the Forest Service got around to adopting the regulations governing Forest Service employment. The regulations prohibited employing anyone under the age of 21. So, Swift was out of a job. But this turned out to be a fortunate event which changed his whole life. Apparently, Seth Bullock, the Forest Supervisor of The Black Hills National Forest, felt sorry for him because he had been their best employee. Bullock had been a Captain in the rough Riders. He was a close friend of President Teddy Roosevelt. The Rough Riders had been the fighting group that young Teddy Roosevelt organized and led in the Spanish-American War. Bullock appealed to Teddy Roosevelt to see if he could get a scholarship for Swift at the Biltmore School of Forestry in North Carolina. This was a college level school which had been organized by the Vanderbilt family to educate foresters. It worked; Swift got the scholarship and was soon on a train to North Carolina. Swift started at the Biltmore Forestry School in Brevard, North Carolina in 1906. The Biltmore School of Forestry had been established in 1898 and was the first professional forestry school in the United States. It even preceded the forestry schools at Yale and Cornell. The school featured academic classroom work and practical forestry work in the adjoining forest. So the students learned both forestry theory in the classroom and the practical aspects of forestry in the forest. The Biltmore School of Forestry is considered so important from a historical standpoint that the school site and its surrounding forest “classroom” are now preserved as a US historic Site – “The Cradle of Forestry in America”. A large museum has been established there. Swift was an excellent student and graduated early. He graduated with a degree as a Forester in 1907. C. A. Schenck, the head of the school wrote a letter of recommendation for Swift. The letter stated in part: “Swift Berry has been one of the most conscientious, intelligent, hard-working and honest young men with whom I have come in contact. He has passed his examinations at the Biltmore School with high honors.” Upon his graduation, now being 21, he was hired by the Forest Service in Washington DC as a Forest Assistant. After a short period at the Washington office he was assigned as a Forest Assistant at the Holy Cross National Forest in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. In 1908 the Forest Service administration was decentralized and a regional headquarters was established in San Francisco. He was transferred to the newly established District 5 headquarters in San Francisco. It administered all the National Forests in California. The staff was very small and each person had many different duties. Swift was assigned to the section of timber sales. He worked on all phases of timber sale work including examination, mapping, appraisal, and inspection. In his spare time, he completed a thesis for an advanced degree from Biltmore Forestry School. His thesis was entitled “The (logging & lumber) Flumes of California.” It earned him the degree of Forest Engineer. In 1912 Swift and Cecille Ball were married. Cecille had been an actress touring throughout the United States with a stage play. When the play was running in San Francisco, the company went broke and the play closed. There was no money left to pay the actors and actresses. This was before unemployment benefits and Cecille was stranded in San Francisco with no money. I don’t know how Swift and Cecille met, but perhaps he attended the last performance of the play. Swift befriended the stranded actress and they fell in love and were soon married. They lived in San Francisco and they had three children – Jack Berry, William Berry, and Betty Lou Berry who became Betty Lou Dickinson when she married. In 1912 he was promoted by the Forest Service to the position of Forest Examiner. In that job he made a number of Logging Time Studies and saw mill Mill-Scale Studies. In 1916 he was promoted to Logging Engineer District 5. In that position he was placed in charge of stumpage appraisals for larger timber sales for all forests in California. The Forest Service decided it would be useful to publish information about logging and saw milling in California. Because of his extensive knowledge, Swift was called on to author this publication. In 1917 Swift’s book “Lumbering in the Sugar and Yellow Pine Region of California” was published by the Department of Agriculture, of which the Forest Service is a part. It is an amazing 90 page document. It covered every aspect that a person would need to know to start a logging and saw mill operation in the Sierras. It covered everything from what size timber to cut to how to go about cutting it. It went into detail about the number of employees which would be required and how much to pay them. It even got down to such minor detail as to how many pints of kerosene a day each log faller would need to lubricate a saw when falling trees. It covers details of the types of railroads needed for large operators. It covers yarding logs with steam donkey engines as well as skidding logs with horses. It covers small circular saw mills and larger band saw mills. It contains many pictures of logging and saw mills. It is a wealth of information on logging and saw milling in that era. It is such an important historical document that in 2006 a forest historian, John Nichols, decided to republish it in its original format. The original republication sold out rapidly. Mr. Nichols decided it was important enough that it should be kept available for interested persons to obtain. He made arrangements with Red Tail Publishing, a print on demand publisher, to keep it available. Red Tail Publishing is in Anderson California, telephone (530) 378-0722. The cost is reasonable. In 1917 the United States entered the First World War. Swift accepted a commission in the United States Army. He was not a combat officer. Instead he was assigned to the Tenth Engineers, Forestry Battalion. He was promoted to Major and was assigned to secure timber and locate saw mill sites for use by the Army. He continued in this work until the armistice in 1918. He remained in France until July 1919 winding up various aspects of the saw mills and timber. In August, 1919 he returned to San Francisco and took a job as Forest Valuation Engineer with the United States Bureau of Internal Revenue. He was in charge of the Timber Valuation Section for California. In 1921 he took a job with a small company in San Francisco. There he dealt with land exchanges, timber cruises and appraisals. In 1923 he became the full time Secretary-Manager of the California Forest Protective Association in San Francisco. In 1924 he went to work for the Michigan California Lumber Company in Camino, California. It was a major lumber company owning more than 85,000 acres of timber with a large saw mill and railroad operation. He and his family moved to Camino. At that time Camino was a very small town of about 350 people 7 miles east of Placerville, which was also a small town. Unfortunately, Cecille found the small town of Camino to be boring and it lacked the excitement of San Francisco. She decided to return to the Bay Area with the children. Swift and Cecille were divorced. His position was Forester and Timber Cruiser. As a Forester, he started a policy of selective cutting and logging which was still followed by the company many years after he retired. In 1930 he became the General Manager of the company. He was responsible for all of the operations of the company. During his tenure Michigan Cal was known as a leader in practicing and encouraging the most advanced methods of forest management leading to a sustained yield operation. The company thrived during the depression of the 1930’s, a time when a great many saw mills went bankrupt. Swift worked to support future advances in forest management. He decided that it would be a good idea to provide a site for practical demonstration of developing forestry practices. In 1933, at his suggestion, Michigan Cal donated 4,400 acres to the University of California to serve as a field laboratory for its forestry school. This resulted in the formation of the Blodgett Research Forest. Even today, the Blodgett Forest, located east of Georgetown, California, remains a key foundation for research into a wide spectrum of forest and environmental issues. Swift Berry married Florence Ball in October 1936. They made their home in Camino. Swift was a true leader in forest matters. He was the President of the Western Pine Association of Portland, Oregon for two years, 1939 and 1940. He was the president of the Pacific Division of the National Association of Wooden Box Shook Makers for three years, 1947, 1948, and 1949. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association in 1948 and 1949. During his career, Swift served on many public committees. For example, he acted as lumber consultant for the World War II National Production Authority in Washington DC as chairman of one of the first district committees under the California Forest Practices Act. He served seven years on the California State Board of Forestry. Swift retired from Michigan Cal in 1949. However, he was not yet done with work. After his retirement, he was selected as the first president of the Mother Lode Bank, started in Placerville. The bank was successful and rapidly grew throughout the Mother Lode. It eventually reached 12 branches in size. He continued as its president until he had a stroke in 1962. Eventually the bank was sold to Wells Fargo, except for the Placerville branch which was sold to US Bank because of antitrust considerations. Swift was very interested in history. He was especially interested in Gold Rush history and the history of the Pony Express. He wanted to share his knowledge of that history with everyone. He was a lifetime member of E. Clampus Vitus, a fun-loving fraternal organization devoted to studying and commemorating the history of the West. He Served as Grand Noble Humbug. This was the head over all of the many chapters of the organization. You can see how fun-loving the organization is in the titles of its officers! In 1952 he was elected California State Senator for the ninth District – Amador and El Dorado Counties. He was the chairman of the Natural Resource Committee. He was also an important member of the highways committee. He served two terms, retiring in 1960. He did good work in promoting the California freeway system, which was greatly expanding then. One of the things that was most important to him was getting Highway 50 improved. In fact, he had a nickname at the legislature. It was “Swifty from 50”. He was successful in getting Highway 50 made into a freeway from Sacramento to Pollock Pines. Unfortunately, after he retired, his successor was not interested in Highway 50. That is the reason why the Highway 50 freeway ends at Pollock Pines even today, more than 50 years after he retired. In the early 1950’s El Dorado County still did not have a regular hospital. It had the County Hospital, which was largely what we would call a convalescent hospital today. It also had the Placerville Sanatorium. It was owned by several local doctors but it did not meet many of the requirements for a full-fledged hospital. Hence the name Sanatorium. Swift was one of the leaders called on to sparkplug the effort to get El Dorado County a genuine hospital. That effort was successful in obtaining the necessary funds from the people of Placerville and El Dorado County. In the 1950’s the Marshall Hospital was constructed, finally giving El Dorado County a genuine hospital. Today Marshall Hospital is extremely successful and is one of the leading hospitals in Northern California. Swift enjoyed cooking for family gatherings and community events. His beef stroganoff was famous throughout the community. When he cooked his stroganoff for American Legion fundraising dinners the attendance was outstanding. In 1962 a stroke paralyzed Swift from the waist down and he was confined to a wheelchair. Still he did not give up. He started working toward getting the use of his legs again. In an outbuilding at his home he had a workman build a ramp with railings on the side. He daily worked, first at standing up, and later walking with the aid of the railings. He was eventually able to stand up and walk the length of the ramp and return, about 30 feet, with the aid of the railings. Unfortunately, he died in 1967, before he was able to walk without the railings. Because of his many accomplishments and important contributions to the advancement of forestry and lumbering as well as his importance to the community, it is fitting that Swift Berry be remembered. The Clampers had it right; “A MAN TO MATCH OUR MOUNTAINS” Phil Berry, 2017