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Page 74 JOHN DUBOIS
tramping out of wheat on the barn floor. At the age of fifteen John
DuBois commenced to take the place of a man in the lumber woods of
the time. Outside of farming, lumbering was the chief occupation of
the community, and the father had purchased a large tract of land
near Owego, consisting of a farm, upon which he erected a saw mill
and a store building and he, with his sons, operated this property.
The principal lumbering was done by rafting on the north branch of
the Susquehanna River, carrying the lumber as far south as Columbia.
At nineteen years of age, John DuBois Jr., took charge of his
father's fleet of rafts, selling it to two merchants at Columbia by
the name of Cooper, receiving seventy-five cents per thousand feet
above the market price. It is said that from this time on he
continued to have charge of the rafting and selling of his father's
lumber. Thus early in life the education of John DuBois, Jr., began
in the practical school of experience. A little later he purchased a
tract of land of one thousand acres, which he and several of his
brothers proceeded to operate and from which they made a very large
amount of money. Prior to this, however, Mr. DuBois decided to enter
into the mercantile business and he went to New York with a man by
the name of Light, who was to take a half interest in the store, but
when he got to New York, Light suddenly disappeared with most of the
money. However Light had introduced Mr. DuBois to merchants who
seemed willing to stock his store. What the results of this venture
were is now unknown, but it evidently was abandoned for the more
active business of lumbering.
At that period, lumbering depended very largely upon the snows of
the winter, and if the winter happened to be open and not much snow,
it was difficult to get the lumber into the streams. John DuBois,
however, was not to be handicapped by open winters and to overcome
this delinquency of nature to furnish him a means of getting his
lumber to market, he invented the "log slide", said to be the first
slide used in the United States. People came for miles to see this
new system of transporting timber to the stream.
Mr. DuBois entered into a partnership with his two brothers, Ezekial
and David, who carried on a lumber business in his own county, and
as the timber became scarcer, they drifted farther south into the
woods of Pennsylvania. The brother, David DuBois died about 1848,
dissolving the firm. At a previous date the older brother, Ezekial
DuBois, had retired from the firm, taking largely the real estate
situated at Tioga Center, in the State of New York, and a certain
amount of money for his share in the firm. This property is still
owned by the descendants of Ezekial DuBois. At the time David DuBois
died, a settlement was made with the family and the interest of
David became invested in John DuBois, Jr., and his brother, Mattias
DuBois. This firm started in lumbering about twenty miles north of
Williamsport. They discovered they should have some property on the
Susquehanna River, at Williamsport,
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