During the period of time from 1860 through 1910, legendary groups of men made their living by floating lumber and logs to Pittsburgh. They started from points on the Clarion River, into the Allegheny River, and to Pittsburgh. There were many markets for the raw material and also finished goods in Pittsburgh, points along the Mississippi River, and in New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.

For more than 316 years, people and events worked to shape the environment we have today. In the beginning, Pennsylvania was one vast, unbroken forest. There was no farmland. Rivers, streams and footpaths provided the only transportation for people and goods.

Pennsylvania’s rich natural resources of timber, coal and minerals helped to industrialize the Commonwealth and the nation. Shipbuilders and iron forges pushed the timber industry into our forests. At one time or another, Pennsylvania led the nation and many times the world in the production of timber.

Spin-off businesses flourished as well in the area now served by the Keystone School District. There were sawmills, factories, tanneries, boat scaffolds and docks, boat building establishments, planning mills, mercantiles, and boarding houses all along the river at the mouth of each creek. All of these provided employment and in some cases provided a luxurious lifestyle for some families. All these businesses thrived in the area from the 1860’s into the early 1900’s. During the peak, one single day there was an actual count of between four and five hundred boats and rafts went by a given point on the Clarion River. The last big run of boats was about 1910. However, on May 22 and 23, 1915 a fleet of 33 boats comprised the last run of boats of that number that will ever run the Clarion River.

Whole families worked in the related logging business. Not only were men needed in the woods to cut and skid logs and to raft them downriver, but women were needed as well. River cooks were needed on raft shanties and at the many boarding houses along the river. As written by Mrs. O. J. Clark, "My father, William (Bill) Ishman, was a woodsman all his life. He would take what he called a job for so many thousand feet of square timber for Mr. Billy Crosman at Redcliff. He hired many men and had a shanty and a cook. The trees were cut down, trimmed and made into a square. The timber was then taken by team six miles to the river where it was rafted together for a flat. He took four flats, one with a shanty for cooking, down the river. My brother, Frank, was one of the hired men and his wife did the cooking. My father was a pilot and in 1896, when I was fourteen years old, I did the cooking for nine men. My father never had a smash up. In his spare time, he would make what he called bows. They were used to put the timber together in the raft."

Zoe Bashline of Sligo gave this account: "My father was a typical raftsman. He never took the responsibility to be a pilot but worked on boat scaffolds and saw mills. His special job was edger. He walked to the mouth of Canoe Creek, one mile and worked from 7 in the morning to 6 at night for $1.50 per day and carried his own lunch. When it closed, he walked to Piney Village a distance of about five miles daily one way, carried his own dinner pail, as they called them, and worked from 7 in the morning to 6 at night for $2.00 per day. Father, William H. Bashline, went with the fleet of rafts of the very last trip down the Clarion River to the "mouth of the creek" as they called it and thence to Pittsburgh." Zoe became a teacher and taught many students around Little Germany and Wentlings Corners in Beaver Township.

Men and women alike worked at various locations along the river: Millstone, Cooksburg, Gravel Lick, Porter’s Landing and State Road Ripple on the upper reaches of the Clarion. Piney, Canoe, Turkey, Licking, and Beaver were on the lower part of the river.

Boat building was a prosperous business at Beaver Creek and Turnip Hole. The Rhea family has been in the lumber business for four generations in the lumber business. The first generations were in the lumber and boat building businesses at Beaver Creek and Turnip Hole. These were the ancestors of our present day owners of Rhea Lumber in Knox and Clarion.

H. C. Heeter and Miles Heeter built boat scaffold. Heeter Lumber is still in existence today. A planing mill was located at Callensburg.

Merchants would fare well before a large group of rafts headed downstream in the first spring trips. One merchant might sell as many as 75 pair of boots in a morning as well as other supplies the men needed for the journey.

Mrs. R. V. Himes recalls: "When I grew older and school days were over, I would often help the women who kept the boarding house where raftsmen stayed. We surely had to work hard for them. Sometimes it would be past midnight by the time the dishes were washed, the food prepared for next morning’s breakfast, and lunches packed for the next day."

As part of my own family history passed by word of mouth, my paternal Great Grandfather Theiss lived at the mouth of Beaver. He rode the river rafts to Pittsburgh but we are not sure of his exact job. He later built a house and farmed up the hill away from the mouth of the creek. My maternal Great Grandmother and her sisters worked as river cooks before they married. They cooked at a boarding house west of Clarion near where highway Route 322 crosses the river. They lived approximately twenty miles away and  stayed at the boarding house since daily travel would have been impossible at that time.

Commodities from Pennsylvania forests supplied the nation and the world.

"David McDonald and game, Davis Munn ran several rafts down the Clarion to Lower Hillville. They sold them to Jacob Hill - 100 foot boats for Pittsburgh coal companies." This indirectly affected people all along the Mississippi River system. "Sol Rafsnyder once ran 1800 barrels of oil from Blyson on a boat" Every part of tree was used: tarbark for tanneries, small pieces for the match factory at Portland Mills, kindling wood for businesses and individual homes. These examples are all part of history and many stories told through True Tales of the Clarion River. Another interesting story included in the book written by E. T. Kahle of Van: "Timber was being cut in a farming community in the late nineties from a small tract of pine near Limestone and hauled to the river. I helped run that timer. One stick was an even 100 feet long, 12 inches square to the top, there were also eighty foot sticks. The 100 foot stick was sold in Pittsburgh for a flag pole."

The life of a pioneer lumberman, pilot, and raftsman was adventurous and very inviting to many, but It did have it’s negative impact on the community. The pilot’s job was the highest paying but also the most hazardous of occupations. Oak rafts would take nose dives every time they hit the riffles. River traffic was heavy and boats and rafts often collided trying to maneuver under bridges and around bends in the river. There were lightning storms, flood waters, ice jams, and sand bars to contend with. Not only was the pilot of each raft in danger but the crew as well. Some of them did not fare so well.When rafts and boats reached Pittsburgh via the Allegheny River, it was not uncommon for people to be stoned by men who were on the steamboats. It is unlikely anyone lost their life, but there were injuries.

Not only were the rivers crowded but land previously forested became crowded as well. Large communities sprung up over night. D. J. Reynolds wrote: "What a tragedy when the pioneer’s axe began the devastation of these works of nature! Those great evergreen forests, also served to hold back the deep snows so that the river never got really low in summer, but always held at almost empty boats stage, with crystal clear snow and spring water, long fine bass, wall-eyed pike and many other varieties, and the woods were full of big and small wild fruit and nuts."

The logging Industry had a big impact on  today's economy.  Through the pioneering efforts of these early area residents, the Keystone community was able to build a strong economic base that still supports our industry today.