Wisconsin timber industry

From “shanties” and “shingles” to “tote roads “and “tinder,” young readers can learn the details of lumberjack labor and lingo in a new Wisconsin Historical Society Press biography, John Nelligan: Wisconsin Lumberjack, by John Zimm.

This newest addition of the Society Press’s Badger Biographies Series, takes readers on a journey through Wisconsin’s lumbering heyday as lived by John Nelligan. Zimm draws from Nelligan’s autobiography and letters, housed in the Wisconsin Historical Society archives, to document the adventurous, tough, and dangerous life Wisconsin lumberjacks lived in the 1800s.

Thousands of men like Nelligan faced the perils of the North Woods, from harsh winter conditions and large saws, to falling trees and ragging rapids, to carve out a living and supply a booming demand for boards, beams and shingles to build new homes in the growing United States — a demand the eventually depleted the supply of North Woods timber in Nelligan’s lifetime.

Born in 1852, Nelligan rose through the lumberjack ranks, starting out as a humble laborer and working his way up to foreman. He worked and lived in Maine, Pennsylvania, and even Canada before coming to Wisconsin in 1871. Near the end of his long life, Nelligan wrote down his rugged life story with the help of a professional writer. In 1929, the Wisconsin Magazine of History first published that autobiography, “Life of a Lumberman.”

“John Nelligan: Wisconsin Lumberjack” is also available as an e-book.