Memories of Charlton County - by Gibson and Mays Back to Table of Contents 29. RAFTING CROSSTIES AND TURPENTINE DOWN THE RIVER (Pp 54-56) When I was a
young man our rivers were used for more than just fishing boats or pleasure boat as they are now. They were water highways that we used to get the pine products from one place to another. I worked for L. T. McKinnon, a millionaire and half owner of the Georgia-Florida Investment Co., and I helped raft crossties and barrels of turpentine down the St. Marys River all the way to Brunswick. Mr. McKinnon owned a tremendous amount of land and he sold the turpentine and ties to
the Downing Company in Brunswick. In fact he usually met us on the Brunswick dock when we pulled up with two loaded lighters. Three of us usually made the week-long trip down the river...Ed Peeples, who was captain of the little tugboat, Guy Dean and me. We left at the Traders Hill dock and always went out when the tide did. Before we left though, we cut enough firewood to last for a week and we loaded this on the boat, for we did our own cooking along the way. The boat
had a small cook stove and while we were on the river, we cooked once a day, fixing enough for all our meals at that time. We pulled two lighters with the tugboat. A lighter was a flat bottomed raft about sixty by thirty feet and each one held very heavy loads of crossties or turpentine. When they were empty, the lighters would rise way up in the water, about eight feet higher than water level; but when they were loaded the tops were only about three feet out of the water.
The tugboat would pull the lighters as long as the tide was going out, and then when it changed we would buck the tide for about an hour, then we tied up to the bank to wait till the tide changed again. That's when we cooked and slept. Then when the tide started going out again, we took off down the river. Sometimes we got stuck on mud banks and had to use long poles to push off. We used the poles mostly to keep the load in the main
channel, but if we got stuck too hard, we had to wait until a better tide came before we could move. After the' crossties and the barrels of turpentine were loaded onto the dock in Brunswick, we turned around and pulled the empty lighters back to Traders Hill. It took nearly as long to get back as it did to get to Brunswick. Once we were caught in a honey of a storm while we were in the St. Andrew's Sound near Jekyll Island. It was so rough that the
waves would pick the boat right up out of the water. We had to turn around and pull into a small creek and we stayed there a week before it was safe enough to leave. We used up all our food supplies while we were waiting for the end of the storm. When we did get to Brunswick, a happy Mr. McKinnon met us at the dock. He said "Well boys, I didn't think I'd aver see you again. I thought you were blowed out to sea!" I know he was glad to see his crossties and
turpentine but he was even happier to see us. He told us he had taken insurance out on the cargo but none on us three men in the boat! Mr. McKinnon asked us if there was anything we needed before we made the trip home and we said we needed food that was easy to heat up and told him we could use come cans of corn beef. He was real close with his money and we expected him to buy us two or three cans, but he bought a full case and put it on the boat. When we got back to Traders
Hill and told Jim Gowen about the corn beef, which was pretty expensive, he said "I'm going down to the boat and steal me some of that. I've never bought a can of corn beef in my life!" | 
