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Graysonia Memories

told me by my father, William Harrison Meddley

Picture taken by Wayne at the Oil & Brine Museum in Smackover, AR. Used with his permission.

Loranger Old Farmer's Day 2004

8 Wheel Log Wagon Index

Chronicle Story about the Lindsey Wagon

Belize Mahogany Loggers

Eyles Letter of 1936

Eyles Order of 1936

Request for Quote by Grimes

Financial Information

Instructions for Hub Caps on Wagons

Wagon Company Payroll - 1910

W.H. Burton Hours and Tasks -- May 1913

Payroll 1914

Wagon Company Payroll - 1932

Wagon Company Salaries

Wagons Shipped April 1922

Wagons Shipped October 1922

Wagons Shipped 1929

Rise and Fall

Lindsey Wagon History

Graysonia Memories

Wagon Pictures

Busy Body and Shays

Lindsey Wagon Co. 1940 Brochure

Wagon/Skidder Testimonials Index

Lindsey Wagon - 1964

Loading a Log Wagon

Loading a Skidder

Wagon Patent Info

Lindsey Lumber Company

San Augustine Lbr. Co. & Lindsey Wagon

Logging Index

[Written by Wayne Meddley and published with his permission.]

My father, William Harrison (Harry) Meddley worked for Graysonia Lumber Company from about 1917 to the late 1920s. My grandfather was 52 years old when my father was born and was disabled by blindness when my father was only about 17 years old. He went to work for Graysonia Mill to support his parents and an older sister but he did get to finish the 10th grade before he had to quit school. The school was located on the Graysonia Road about a half mile from the junction of Highway 8 in Clark County Arkansas on the north side of the road. A Mrs. Lookadoo was the teacher and she said she would teach if daddy would walk back and forth with her to school from near the Chaleybeate Valley Church where they lived at the time. He worked in the logging woods for a Mr. Albert (Al) Patton who was woods boss, in charge of the log cutters, haulers, etc. When he started working at Graysonia they started him driving a team of mules hauling and loading logs on the train that went to the woods in the morning, got the logs loaded and returned to the mill that afternoon. The men sometimes rode to the woods and back on the train each day but most of them built shacks to live in and also lived in box cars placed on tracks for the purpose. The wagons used were 8 wheel wagons, the wheels being about 8 inches wide and 30 inches diameter, instead of the standard one and a half to three inches on a farm wagon. The spokes of these wheels was almost as wide as the wheels, all made of wood except the iron rims and the hub. These were very heavy duty wagons consisting of two trucks. Each truck having 4 wheels. The rear truck was connected to the front truck by a clevis or shackle on the short coupling pole, letting the trucks pivot in the middle. These wagons, while empty, could turn in a very small radius.

These wagons was pulled by four mules. The mules that were hooked to the wagon were called "wheelers" because they were hooked to the wagon tongue with a breast chains and guided the wagon and worked nearest to the front wheels. My dad said that these lead mules weighed in at about 1600 pounds each and wore an altered size 3 horse shoe because they didn't make mule shoes that big. The lead mules or "leaders", was hooked to the wagon in front of the wheelers. The driver (sometimes called "mule skinner" but my father didn't like that term) rode the "off wheeler", the wheeler on the left side of the wagon. The mule skinners used eight plat leather whips approximately eight foot long, tapering to a four plat at the end, with a short sea grass rope popper on the small end. These mule skinners never struck a mule with a whip, they were used to make a popping sound near their ears to get their attention. My father was skilled with a whip so well that I have seen him knock a horsefly off of a farm mule or horse with a check line and not touch the mule. I know that a lot of you know what a check line is so I will tell the uninformed. A check line is a leather line about 1 1/4 inches wide and approximately 15 feet long and forked about 5 feet from the end, one going to the right side of each mule's bridle bit. The other check line was identical except it went to the left side of both mules. These check lines was used to guide the mules when turning or backing up.

After reaching the area that the logs were to be loaded, the leaders were unhooked from the wagon and used to skid the logs to the wagon and load them using skid poles. These skid poles were small hardwood logs about five inches in diameter and maybe 10 feet long and forked at the top end so they would fit the end of the wagon bunks. Two chains was used to load the logs on the wagons. One chain was about 20 feet long, had both ends hooked to the end of the wagon bunks. The center of the chain was then brought under the log and wrapped around the log about one and a half turns and thrown over the wagon. The leader mules was then hooked to this chain and rolled the logs up the skid poles onto the wagon, as the logs got higher, the skid poles were moved to the top log so the next one could be loaded. After loading the wagon, the leaders were again hooked in front of the wheelers and hauled the logs to the train which was usually located nearby. Sometimes the logs were rolled off the wagons near the track for the train to pick up at a later date. Mr. Bert Jones operated the loader which was steam driven also drove the train to and from the woods, according to his son Bud, whom I talked to recently. I never saw my father haul logs on an 8-wheel wagon but I have gone to the woods with him a lot of times when he hauled logs on a 4-wheel log wagon.

When a loaded wagon was going down a steep grade, which they had a lot of in western Clark county, they would lock from one to four of the wheels on the rear trucks with a chain to hold the wagon back keeping it from running over the mules. Since these wagons and their load was so heavy, brakes were of no use so the chains were used instead of brakes. Only the wheelers could hold the wagon back as they were the mules that was hooked to the breast yoke which was on the end of the tongue..

My mother and father usually lived in logging camps near the logging operations. Sometimes they lived in two railroad box cars on rails side by side, one as the kitchen, the other as the living room or what they called the "heater" room. The other was used as a kitchen and/or a spare bedroom. Wood was used for heating and cooking and water was either a well with a rope and bucket or a spring. Sometimes shacks was built out of slabs or lumber from the mill but since they were used only a short time, most of the time they lived in the railroad box cars. My older brother and sister was born in a logging camp but I don't know which one.

The engines of these logging trains were either the standard or Shay engine. The difference between the two was the way the cylinders connected to the drive wheels. On the standard engine, the steam cylinders were horizontal, connecting the pistons to the wheels by a radius rod. On the Shay engine, the cylinders were vertical, connecting the pistons to a horizontal crankshaft, turning the crankshaft connecting to the wheel axles by miter and worm gears.. Grayson McLeod Mill owned at least three shay engines.

I remember my father telling the story several times of the tornado that struck a logging camp three or four miles north of Goldens store that was located at the junction of the DeGray Road and Pierce Road. It happened at a time that there was about 20 mules in a small corral near the camp. The tornado blew 20 to 25 trees down in the corral without injuring a mule. Also, the community well was in the camp and after the tornado was over, the well had been sucked dry by the tornado and a prairie chicken was in the well. I have heard the same story from other people. One person died in this tornado, a lady by the name of White.

Another story he told was of the logger coming home on a Saturday night after having too much to drink and entering the boxcar, walking straight through the car and falling out the back door. After doing this at two or three times he asked, "Who took the floor out of this boxcar?"

Sometime in the 1950s my father and I was turkey hunting in the mountains just west of where the DeGray Dam is now located on the Caddo River and we came across a small stream running down the side of a very steep hill. He got my attention and informed me that in the 1920s, he skidded logs down this hill to load on the 8-wheel wagons. The skidding of the logs started the hillside to erode into a small stream during wet weather. One time we were deer hunting on the old tram road, east of the DeGray road and he showed me where the Graysonia Camp was located that was hit by the tornado but nothing was visible but a sink place where the well stood and a few rusted cans and part of a wood cook stove and scraps of tin roofing. A logging camp was near the junction of Highway 53 and Highway 8 and one was located on Long Creek not far from where it emptied into the Caddo River. This is all covered by DeGray Lake now. The old railroad tram is still very much in view at the site and scattered metal scraps are here also. Several of the old trams was used as timber access roads for many years. There is an old tram north of the Military Road that runs along Bell Creek then turns west and crosses the Bell Creek Road that we drove vehicles over to deer hunt in the late 1970s. A few years ago a 30 foot section of rail from the old railroad was north of the Skyline Drive down Long Creek along the old tram road. An old railroad tram runs from just west of the DeGray Dam to Long Creek where it crosses Skyline Drive, it forked there, one fork going north down Long Creek to the Cash Bottom on the Caddo River and the other going west to Graysonia.

In the summer of 1954 my father was cutting pulpwood for International Paper company, that was the year that there was no measurable rainfall from the end of April until September, only a few sprinkles. An arsonist started fires in northern Clark county and eventually burned over 11,000 acres during the hottest part of the summer. The woods foreman, a Mr. Bess, knew that my father was very familiar with the area of the fire better than most anyone else, for he had hauled logs here thirty years before, so he drove to our house to get my father who was off from work due to an axe coming in contact with his foot. It took several stitches to close the wound but he went with the woods foreman and stayed with him for nearly a week instructing the fire fighters where to find roads and trails to get equipment to the fire.

In about 1987, a fellow whom I knew for many years, now deceased, told me of an episode while he was working at the Graysonia Mill. The logging train had crossed the Antoine River on a rock bridge or jetty while going into Pike county to get a load of logs. While on the west side of the river getting loaded it came a heavy rain. When the train crossed the flooded river going back to the mill, water flowed into the fire box extinguishing the fire in the boiler but luckily there was enough steam in the boiler to get the engine out of the river. The fireman got another fire going in the boiler and proceeded on to the mill.

My dad told me of a log hauler using yokes of oxen to haul logs for the Graysonia Mill. His name was Hicks Doss and at one time we had a picture of the oxen but time faded the picture so bad it was finally discarded..

My father had fond memories of the mill, the 8-wheel wagons and the men he worked with. Some of them he kept in touch with as long as he lived. One of them was the Patton family, both parents now deceased, but some of the children still live in Arkansas whom I have kept in touch with all these years. Another family I remember him talking about was Roy O'Neal and his family. I met a relative of the Pete O'Neal family three or four years ago while visiting my daughter and son-in-law in Houston, Texas who my dad worked with at Graysonia and sent her some Graysonia information. Our families knew each other when both worked at the mill. I don't know of anyone still living that actually worked at the mill, possibly there is some left who did. I have seen a few pictures of the mill but a very good picture of the mill hands was in the sawmill office at Antoine but it was destroyed by vandals who broke into the mill office a few years ago. The mill site is grown up in briars and brush now, the mill pond is full of brush and nearly filled up. The old concrete pump house on the river, the concrete dry kilns and foundations for the mill and water tower is about all that is left of Graysonia now.

Harry, my father, never really got away from working in the woods. After Graysonia cut all the virgin timber and shut the mill down, he went to work at various sawmills in the county always hauling logs. He cut pulpwood and hauled logs off and on until the mid 60s at about age 65 when he was injured in a logging accident and had to give up his 40+ years of working in the woods.

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