Some twenty years since, these arrivals, and also those of the river-drivers, were characterized by a free indulgence in spirituous liquors, and many drunken carousals. Grog-shops were numerous, and the dominion of King Alcohol undisputed by the masses. Liquor flowed as freely as the waters which bore their logs to the mills. Hogsheads of rum were drunk or wasted in the course of a few hours on some occasions, and excessive indulgence was the almost daily practice of the majority, even from the time of their arrival in the spring until the commencement of another winter's campaign. I speak now more particularly of employees, though I calculate, as a Southerner would say, that many of the employers in those days had experience enough to tell good West India from New England rum.
"In 1832, in a population not exceeding four hundred and fifty or five hundred, on the St. Croix, three thousand five hundred gallons of ardent spirits were consumed." A distinguished lumberman, whose opinion is above quoted, remarks further, "So strong was the conviction that men could not work in the water without 'spirits,' that I had great difficulty in employing the first crew of men to drive on the river on temperance principles. When I made known my purpose to employ such a gang of men, the answer almost invariably was, 'You may _try_, but, depend upon it, the drive will never come down.' But old men, who had been spurred on to exertion for thirty years by ardent spirits, were forced to acknowledge, when they came down river, that they had never succeeded so well before; and learned, at that late period, that the cause of their stiff joints and premature old age was not wholly on account of exposure to the cold and work in the water, but the result of strong drink."
It would be difficult to give an exaggerated sketch of the drunken practices among loggers twenty-five years ago. I recollect that matters were carried so far at Milltown, that the loggers would arrest passers-by, take them by force, bring them into the toll-house grog-shop, and baptize them by pouring a quart of rum over their heads.
Distinctions of grade were lost sight of, and the office of deacon or priest constituted no exemption "pass" against the ordeal, rather the rite profaned. This process of ablution was practiced with such zeal upon their own craft and transient passers-by, that a hogshead of rum was drawn in a short time, running in brooks over the floor. The affair was conducted amid the most boisterous and immoderate merriment--the more distinguished the candidate, the more hearty the fun.
