Joseph Sherwood

In 1854, Joseph Sherwood and his brother Warren traveled from their home in Vermont to Sawamish County (name changed to Mason County 10 years later) in the Washington Territory, bringing with them considerable experience in sawing and water power. Soon after settling on land at the western edge of North Bay, they built a waterwheel and sawmill near the mouth of what is now known as Sherwood Creek. They created a dam at the mill site to turn the wheel, and a second one farther up the creek for storage. Joe rigged a jigsaw that cut logs into cants, and a set of small jigs for resawing the cants into boards.

A brief article from an undated publication titled "Big Skookum, 100 Logging Years in Mason County," says that Joe Sherwood, "the Hercules of Allyn," was "second only to Michael T. Simmons in Mason County's sawmill history. In 1870, Enoch Willey called upon the skill of Joe Sherwood to build the Willey mill at John's Creek on Oakland Bay. Joe framed the mill at Allyn and barged it around to Oakland Bay."

The story goes on to claim that Joe Sherwood stood 6 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 300 pounds. "No man of his day could out-chop or outwork Joe Sherwood. When one of his bulls took sick, he paired up in the yoke with the other bull and worked around the mill. Joe took it easy so his long-tailed partner could keep up. Felling saws had not yet been fashioned and trees of great size were chopped down, chip by chip. Still in memory is the challenge of a young chopper who dared Joe Sherwood to race him in felling a big Douglas fir. The challenger, standing on a springboard 7 feet above ground, was given a long start by the grinning Joe. Joe then stood on the ground below his opponent and chopped the tree down, man and all." The story concludes, "This lifter of pork barrels, hand mover of logs, chopper supreme, this man stronger than a bull, died in the violence of his work. In the year 1873, Joe Sherwood was muscling a log into his sawmill with the aid of a cant dog when the handle snapped and sent Joe into a fall which broke his neck."

Joe Sherwood's death was the first recorded fatal accident in the timber industry in Mason County. He was buried in the family orchard near Sherwood Creek. After his death, Joe's wife, a Skokomish woman named Mary, moved back to the Skokomish Reservation with their two children. When she died about 16 years later, she was buried in the Skokomish burial grounds. In 1939, their daughter, Ada Sherwood Wilton of Tacoma, had the remains of both her parents exhumed and moved to the Puyallup School burial grounds near Tacoma. (An article in the Journal about the reburial seem to contradict the almost mythical size of Joseph Sherwood, describing him as a "rather small but powerful man.")

Not much is recorded about the life of Joe's brother Warren, beyond the fact that he, too, married a Skokomish woman, and that their son Kimball, and daughters Minnie and Annie, lived their lives on the Skokomish Reservation.

■ Jan Parker is a researcher for the Mason County Historical Museum. She can be reached at [email protected]. Membership in the Mason County Historical Society is $25 per year. For a limited time, new members will receive a free copy of the book "Shelton, the First Century Plus Ten."