Bibliographies:  Exploits of Cherry Tree Joe McCreery, Indiana Co, PA

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Exploits of Cherry Tree Joe McCreery

Cherry Tree Joe McCreery, born near Muncy in 1805, was a
larger-than-life personality even during his own lifetime when the
logging industry was in its heyday in the last century.  Taking his
nickname from his hometown, the place his parents, Hugh and Nancy
McCreery, brought him to from Lycoming County when he was about 13 years
old he is said to have been part of the crew of the first raft floating
down the West Branch of the Susquehanna River from the Cherry Tree area
in 1827.  It was run by Reeder King, an uncle-in-law.

During the rough and tough days of the logging era exaggerated stories
of Joe's exploits were told.  Unlike Paul Bunyan, a later imaginary
hero, Cherry Tree Joe was a real person.  In a newspaper account, lumber
industry historian R. Dudley Tonkin remembered him as a large bearded
man about six foot three inches tall and 200 pounds.

A folk tale says than where Joe lived in the hills on The Creek Without
an End, his wife cooked on a griddle six feet square and used a side of
bacon to grease it and a barrel of flour every morning to make
flapjacks.  This must be why the mice in his cabin grew to weigh 60
pounds and he had to keep a panther as a house cat.  Down through the
years the tales kept growing and growing not only of adventures on the
state waterways but on dry land.

For instance, he risked his life during the Johnstown Flood in 1889 to
pull a house up on the bank as it came riding down the flood waters. 
Doing this saved the lives of two sets of triplets.  But the true tales
are as interesting as the tall tales.  Joe joined the 11th Pennsylvania
Volunteer Cavalry in 1861 at age 56 to fight in the Civil War.  He was
discharged the next March after losing a leg.  He was then known
sometimes as Contrary Joe.  This injury didn't slow him down, though. 
The July 14, 1870 Indiana Progress tells the tale of two children, ages
four and six, of Jonathan Buterbaugh of Green Township, Indiana County,
who were out visiting a field where men were working and were sent home
because of a storm being imminent.  They evidently took a wrong road and
when they were found to be missing, some 300 persons began a search. 
The hero of the day was Cherry Tree Joe McCreery who found them the next
day at noon at the head of McKeages Dam seven miles from home, wet
through since it had rained heavily during the night when they were
wandering.  The children told the searchers they were going to visit an
uncle, that it was very dark but the fireflies lighted the way and they
were only frightened once during a heavy clap of thunder.

McKeages Dam is on Cush Cushion Creek, a short distance from the site of
where the wild cherry tree was located from which the town derives its
name.  The tree marked the point known as Canoe Place, the head of canoe
navigation at ordinary stage of water and where the Indians customarily
tied their canoes before they went on the trail overland to the
Allegheny River.

One of the true tales of Cherry Tree Joe's exploits led to the writing
of an 11 verse ballad by Henry Wilson of Cherry Tree and Joe is said to
have liked to sing the song about himself and didn't seem to mind what
it said about him.  

The first verse says:

You rivermen have surely heard about the appropriation that was made to
clear our little ditch and benefit the nation.

That we might run through Chessy Falls nor get the least bit weary.  So
they raised the stamps and gave the job to Cherry Tree Joe McCreery.

Refrain:  Lookin' out for number one; Spendin' all the money, and
gettin' nothing done.

The ballad continues to tell of dynamiting done at Chest Falls
down-river from Mahaffey to clear the channel of boulders that made
rafting difficult.  This area was reputed to be the most dangerous point
of navigation on the West Branch.

Opinion was divided on whether the venture was a success or failure, but
after that many things that happened to the raftsmen, the ballad says,
were blamed on Cherry Tree Joe.

But he didn't always appear as a hero.  Another account concerning Joe
was in the June 28, 1859 Indiana Weekly Register when he was at
Slotmiller's lager beer saloon, no address given, "boasting of his
physical attainments, crowing loudly and bullying around a number of
persons" when Jack Kelly knocked him into a corner where he "lay musing
a short time."

Joe and his wife, the former Eleanor Banks, were the parents of six
children, all boys.  He died in November 1895 and is buried at Cherry
Tree Cemetery.  The Lumberman's and Raftsmen's Association initiated an
annual reunion in 1928 and program books carry the words of the ballad
and a biography of Joe.  His boots were hung on display at each
reunion.  The last reunion was held in 1955 at Cherry Tree when Mr.
Tonkin had a monument placed at Canoe Place Park honoring the lumbermen
and raftsmen.

This article written as "Sketches in Time" by Jane Elling  - staff
writer for Phillipsburg, Moshannon Valley, Pa. on Tuesday, October 27,
1992 and provided by Ron Homer of Cherry Tree Pennsylvania.

Additionally, Ms. Elling wrote:

In years to come, no rafts will run
Our Susquehanna River
And the cherry cry, "Land! Tie up!"
We'll hear no more forever.
Down Rocky Bend, and through Chest Falls,
On winter nights so eerie,
The phantom raftsmen will chase the ghost
Of Cherry Tree Joe McCreery.

Do canoeists who put their craft in the stream near Mahaffey, who float
past Mahaffey Family Camp and on to Rocky Bend and Chest Falls ever see
this specter said to haunt the site of one of his greatest adventures?

This man who became a legend in his own lifetime and was the
unquestioned hero of the lumbering industry until Paul Bunyan was
invented had many exaggerated stories told of his adventures on the
waterways of Pennsylvania.

Once he single-handedly broke a 10-mile log jam at Buttermilk Falls, and
another time he just lifted a timber raft clear, set it down in safe
water and then jumped aboard.

At the time of another jam on the river, he pulled out his knife and
began whittling.  Soon the whole raft was cut into little sticks and
that's how toothpicks were invented.  He loaded them into a flatboat and
took them to Philadelphia where folks were so delighted they paid him
$5,000 more than the timber would have been.

Joe, of course, his eyes were so sharp he could take a raft down river
in pitch darkness.  He never needed to carry lights of a horn because he
could be heard singing or whistling for miles.

A description of him could be anywhere from a paltry 6 feet three
inches, to a giant who could fasten a raft to each foot and skate down
the Susquehanna River to Williamsport in a day, or less at that time if
the river was frozen.

Joe lived in a cabin somewhere in the hills around Cherry Tree where he
kept moose for milk cows and a panther for a house cat because the
crumbs falling down from his table were so huge that the mice grew to
weigh 60 pounds.  Cherry Tree Joseph McCreight McCreery was a real man,
not just a legend, who was born in 1805 at Port Penn, near Muncy,
Lycoming County, who died in 1895 and is buried in Cherry Tree
Cemetery.  He was brought to Cherry Tree when he was about 13 years old
and it is said to have been on the first raft from that area, run by a
relative, Reeder King, in 1827.  

He could do no wrong in the tales of his legendary deeds but when it
came to a real feat, it turned out to be a failure and was the basis for
the ballad by Henry Wilson first said to be printed in the 'Cherry Tree
Clipper' about 1880.

The rafting industry was of considerable importance and the Chest Falls
was a dangerous area for rafts with its large boulders that dotted the
waterway.  The General Assembly of Pennsylvania approved an act "For the
removal of obstructions and impediment of the navigation of the
Susquehanna River" and this act was to be expended under the direction
of E. B. Camp, Mr. McKeage, James B. Graham and John Patton.

Cherry Tree Joe volunteered for the job, insisting the best thing to do
was blow out the big boulders.  A box of dynamite was purchased, which
none of the men knew how to use.  A written report on the feat related
by the late Dudley Tonkin said they stopped at John Patchin's store on
the way to the water and talked his son, Jack, out of a gallon of
whiskey.

The blasting made lots of noise, but moved mighty little and the falls
were as big a hazard as ever, and whenever a raft wrecked there,
everybody blamed "Cherry Tree Joe."

Those exploits at Chest Falls happened not very many years before he
enlisted in the Union Army, the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, in
1861, even though he was 56 years old.  He was discharged the following
March after losing a leg.

His boots were always hung on display at the Raftsmen's and Lumbermen's
annual reunions and his ballad is printed in their programs.

That ballad is as follows:

Cherry Tree Joe McCreery
Noted Pilot - Susquehanna River
By:  Henry Wilson

You Rivermen have surely heard
About the appropriation
That was made to clean our little ditch
And benefit the nation;
That we might run through Chest Falls
Nor get the least bit weary,
So they raised the stamps
And gave the job to Cherry Tree Joe McCreery.

Chorus

Looking out for number one
Spending all the money
And getting nothing done.

There's Bob McKeage and E.B. Camp,
Who held the ready Ginger,
Some men of sense said "build a dam,"
But they would not raise a finger.
We will blow the rocks sky high said they,
So Porter don't get skeery,
But let rip and she'll go through
Said Cherry Tree Joe McCreery.

Now you all know and I can show
That fate is a cruel master,
When once you're going down the hill!
He's sure to push you faster, 
And that's the way, mind what I say,
And don't you see, my deary,
That everything happens now
Is blamed on Joe McCreery.

One day this Spring as I came up,
I met somebody's daughter
Wh held her apron to her eyes
To catch the salty water,
Dear girl, said I, what makes you cry
You must feel very dreary,
Why my Daddy stoved in Chest Falls
And I am hunting Joe McCreery.

The other day they had asplash
And jammed her tight as thunder,
A circumstance that caused our folks
To gaze around in wonder,
They prayed and tore, ripped and swore,
Until they all grew weary,
Sheff cut his Bill Raft into sticks,
And cursed Cherry Tree Joe McCreery.

Now Captain Dowler the other day,
He struck a raft of timber,
That was hanging up to Sliding Point,
And tore the rope asunder;
The Captain winked and scratched his head
Say this kind of dreary,
Then he jumped his oar, went on shore
And prayed for Joe McCreery.

Our Squire Riddle on the hill,
Who deals out justice even,
His head is very bald you know,
No hair twixt him and heaven,
I asked how his hair came out
And he answered sort of dreary
That it must have come out thinking
About Cherry Tree Joe McCreery.

In years to come when no rafts run
On our dear little river,
And the cheery cry of "land tie up"
Shall be heard no more, forever;
Down Rocky Bend through Chest Falls
On winter nights so dreary,
You'll see the Phantom Raftsmen chasing around
The Ghost of Cherry Tree Joe McCreery.


Prepared by:  Clark E. Creery
Great Great Grandson of Cherry Tree Joe McCreery