Oral History Program Fred Puffer Interviewed by Bruce Dalley 2 July 1972 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Fred Puffer Interviewed by Bruce Dalley 2 July 1972 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Puffer, Fred, an oral history by Bruce Dalley, 2 July 1972, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Fred Puffer. The interview was conducted on July 2, 1972, by Bruce Dalley, in Beaver, Utah. Puffer discusses farming and irrigation, and how it was to farm through the Depression. He also briefly discusses hunting. Stella Puffer participates briefly in the interview. BD: Now to start out, I would like to have you give me a little bit about your background like where you were born and the circumstances of your birth, your education, and maybe why you settled here. FP: We do you want me to tell you when I was born? BD: Yes, please. FP: I was born in 1904, in Idaho, but my folks moved back to Beaver. They were farmers here to start with and my father was one of the early pioneers in Beaver. My grandfather was one of the first settlers in Beaver. BD: Now did they come here with the Mormon Church pioneers? FP: Well, my grandparents on my mothers’ side did, but my grandfather on my father’s side wasn't a pioneer. He was a frontiersman. He wasn't a member of the church and he lived here about 30 to 40 years. My own folks’ folks lived here practically all of their lives. They moved back from Idaho, and they farmed and raised a few cattle, a garden and stuff like that to make a living, and then my dad sold out and moved to Canada. He stayed there a few years then came back to Beaver and bought a little farm and that is where I was practically raised, on a far. I spent my whole life here on the farm. We made a living and that is about the best I can say. BD: Did you attend school? 1 FP: I attended Beaver school, yeah, for a one year high school and quit and went to work. My mother died when I was 14 and I was one of seven in the family. That was quite a job for him to raise us them days. We rode the school bus to Beaver most of the time. There was a little school here in North Creek until I was in the fifth grade. Then we went to Beaver School. Then when we got out of grade school I rode a horse to Beaver for one year. BD: How long did it take you to ride a horse? FP: About 45 minutes. BD: Was that riding it pretty hard? FP: Yes, that is riding it pretty hard. It is about eight miles down to the school. BD: After you quit school, did you become a farmer or did you-- FP: No, I kind of, well I helped my folks on a farm, then worked for wages here and there where ever I could to make a little money. I sheered sheep and worked at odd jobs until I was twenty one, and then I bought a farm. We have lived that since I married Stella Powell then, when I was twenty one. We have lived on the farm ever since. BD: You bought the farm from somebody that had settled it or-- FP: No, I bought it from the Real Estate then, a real estate agency. After we had been on it a few years we bought another two or three little farms so I finally got a permit on the forest to run a few cattle then we dairy milked a few cows and raised a few pigs. That's how we made our living, BD: You mentioned that you bought a permit for the forest, could you explain that a little bit, please. FP: Well, we, the way we had to buy it was you would find somebody that had a permit that wanted to sell, and then you had to buy their cattle or sheep, whichever it was, then the 2 permit with them. They couldn't be transferred alone, you had to have the stock to go with them. BD: So after you already had some cattle, you couldn't put them up on the forest to graze. FP: No, I couldn't. I had to buy cattle. Then after I bought them I could sell them and run my own if I wanted to, but you had to buy the cattle in order to get the permit transferred. BD: Now is this kind of thing still in effect today? FP: Yes, you can't, the only way you can get a permit is to buy it. And you have to buy the stock with it to get it. BD: What kind of crops did you raise on your farm? FP: Mostly hay and grain. BD: Do you sell them or keep them for your own use? FP: The beef? BD: No, I mean the hay and grain. FP: Oh, we fed it. We fed the hay and grain. BD: You fed that, then, to the cattle? FP: Yes, then sell their calves. BD: So then your actual income is derived when you sell the cattle? FP: Yeah, we used to raise pigs and sell them too, but don't now. BD: Why did you quit selling pigs? FP: There wasn't any money in it. You couldn't get your feed out of it so I just quit raising them. BD: When you had been raising hay, have you always had like a tractor or this kind of thing? FP: No, I used to do all the farm work with horses up until about, let’s see, during the First World War, or was it during the Second World War. During the Second World War I got 3 my first tractor. One of my horses died so I bought a tractor and I've never used horses since, used all tractors since then. BD: Now, did you have a car for your own transportation? FP: Oh yes, we have always had a car. Ever since we were married, I’ve had a car to get to town and back. But when I was younger, up until about twenty one, we used to go to town by horses. Buggy or ride a horse. There was no automobile transportation for us, we never had a car. BD: You mentioned that your father and grandfather had settled here, and I assume that this was about 1848 or 1830. Are these the Puffers that named Puffer Lake? FP: Yeah, my grandfather was the first white man ever to see it. He was hunting bear when he found it so they named it after him. BD: Were there, like, a lot of bear? FP: Well, there were not a lot, but there were some bear here and there. There were quite a few lions. They killed all the bears off, they got killing the stock and so they finally got rid of the bear. BD: This may sound funny, but were there Indians or hostile-type stuff during your grandfather or your father’s time? FP: Yes, there were Indians, and once in a while they would get mean and they would have an uprising. They had quite a bit of trouble to start with, until we got them onto a reservation. The tribe that was here they called the Beaverads, and this old chief, there was a beaver out there and they called him Beaverad. And that was the tribe that lived here to start with that gave the most trouble. I don't know where they moved them, but they finally moved them away to somewhere. See, this was to begin with as a, Beavers put here entirely in a 4 Mormon settlement. They were, of course, other people moved in afterwards and it was settled entirely by the Mormons to start with. BD: Was this quite soon after Salt Lake was settled, wasn't it? Or-- FP: Yes, it was, I can....Brigham Young sent that bunch down here, I can't remember their names but it’s in the books to settle Beaver. And all through down south, then they come back and pared in a bunch of settlers. See there was good hunting, good fishing here and there were a lot of good natural meadows in Beaver to start with, and that is what they had to be the first settlers to cut this grass-hay to feed their animals and raise their own food on ground they could break up and plow. They had a pretty nice place here to start with, of course, they had the hardships, but they really, it was a nice place at that time. BD: During the pioneer times, when you mentioned the uprisings, was it, have you heard any stories or anything like this that maybe we could get a little background about how rough it was for people. FP: Well I have heard lots of stories, but the Indians were bad enough that they had to build, that was why Brigham had that Coal Fort was built, you know, was to protect the settlers in case of Indian attacks. But here in Beaver, I wouldn't tell you about attacks in different places like out to Greenville or out to South of town there at South Creek. They had quite a bunch there and they… My grandfather was the first man out there. BD: So there was actually settlers were going and killing the Indians during the uprising? FP: Well they were protecting themselves from them and trying to make friends mostly. They didn't want to fight them or kill them but there was quite a bit of fighting between the settlers and the Indians for quite a few years. Then the Indians were bad to want to steal 5 stuff. That's why they would steel cattle, horses, or anything they could get so that's why the settlers had to protect their selves from them. BD: How now, you just don't think about the Mormon people being Indian fighters. FP: No, they were mostly just protecting their selves. But Brigham Young, that was the reason they went to Coal Fort was to protect the settlers from the Indians. The settlers then were all Mormons that were coming in from that direction from Salt Lake. BD: I think we will kind of skip back to your farm here. Have you been farming it since about 1925 or 26 then? FP: Yes, ever since we bought this we have been farming it ever since. We have leased some ground, bought a little more. BD: Would you tell me how you raised your hay and grain? Do you dry land it or do you irrigate it. FP: It is all irrigated. We never dry land crops here at all. Here it is all irrigation. BD: Where do you get your water from to irrigate it? FP: Well, my spot comes from North Creek, and some years it is a good supply in the spring, but it always gets short in the fall or late summer. Then we, every once in a while, have a dry year. It keeps us pretty busy to keep enough feed ahead for our livestock. BD: Do you have a water company to regulate your water or anything? FP: Well, there are two companies in North Creek. There is what they call West Side and North Creek Irrigation Co. Each one owns half of the North Creek flow. BD: Could you maybe explain how these companies function if you would? FP: Well, it's run by a board of directors, all under the supervision of a state engineer, of course, now. But the board of directors, they tell how the water is to be distributed and 6 how much our water assessments are and take care of any legal matters that come up. We have a board of directors that had five men on it. We elect a board each year to take care of the business that comes up about the water each year. BD: Does each farmer have about the same amount of water? FP: No, There is put near two thousand shares in North Creek Irrigation Co. It is classified as three different classes, A and B and C, and as the creek raises so many feet the B water comes in and after it gets up still a little farther, C water comes in. There is A, B, and C water. Some men have a lot bigger water right than others, of course. But a share of water of A or a share of B or a share of C, each glass gets all A and B and C and they all get the same amount per share. BD: So if a person had only C shares, then he wouldn't get any water until the creek was real high? FP: We, he wouldn't get any water until it got up to eighteen second feet, that is thirty six feet in the creek before B and C gets any. BD: About these two thousand shares, were they divided out so many per acre? FP: To begin with, why the ground was put in by acres, each whatever acres of ground it had broken up was that was certain, they did used to call it 70 or 80 or 90 water. 70 was the first broke up and 80 was the second and 90 was the C. That was during 1890 and that was the last when the C was classified. Later on, when the company being incorporated, it was A and B and C instead of 70, 80, and 90 water. BD: Have you ever been on the board of directors for your water company? 7 FP: Yeah, I was on the board for several years. BD: Do you have any dealings with the company now or just as a share owner of the water? FP: Well, they have a water master here, and I've been the water master for ten or fifteen years. BD: As water master what do you do? FP: I see that water is distributed equally amongst all the shareholders. Each one gets what is coming to them, I measure and see what is coming to each shareholder and he gets that much. I work under the direction of the board of directors. There, they tell the water master how much to water and he sees that each one gets his equal share of it. You have to measure the Creek nearly every day and see how much water there is to be distributed to them. BD: Now, about the early 1920, 1930's, were the times pretty good for the farmers then? FP: Well, they weren’t too good, but during the depression, we had a right bad drought, and we had the depression and the drought together and it was really tough for the farmers. They didn't have any feed and they couldn't sell their stock or anything. The government finally gave them $12 per head for their cow and they would take them out and kill them, just leave them in the brush. They didn't do anything else with them. That was, that depression hurt us bad but the drought hurt us worse cause we could have held on to them if we could get hay. In them days we had to transport it with a team or we just couldn't get hay. BD: Now, about the government taking the cattle out and just killing them. You mean-- FP: Well, Roosevelt put that in as kind of a relief for this drought stricken area. He bought the cattle and the ones that were in bad shape they just took out and killed them. The ones 8 that were good enough, they drove them back into Colorado. And then the government fed them and then they killed them and distributed them out to the people in what they called dole in them days, you know, FWA and they distributed than out as so much per person, you know, kill it and make beef out of it and it was distributed out that way so the only ones that were really wasted were the poor ones that were killed. But they did that through this whole drought stricken area. BD: Did you sell your cattle to the government? FP: No I didn't. I kept mine, bought a little hay and I did get by with them, but I didn't make anything. BD: This is about the only time that the government has stepped in and tried to help the farmers, isn't it, during the great depression? FP: Oh yes, they had a feed program on, they shipped a lot of grain in and it didn't cost the farmer anything. And it was distributed out according to how much stock they had. They didn't ship any hay in, just grain. They had a large surplus of grain and that is the way that they got rid of it. BD: Now this grain didn't cost the farmer anything? FP: Only the freight from the nearest railroad station. BD: Where did the railroad come to then? FP: That was in Milford that is about thirty miles away. It was hauled up to here by trucks and teams, whatever they could get to haul it. BD: What would the amount the units, what would the cost be say a big sack of grain be, from Milford to here? FP: I cost about fifty cents per sack to have it hauled here from Milford to Beaver. 9 BD: Under normal conditions, what would a sack of grain sold for? FP: Under normal conditions then it was selling for a dollar ten a hundred. BD: Then that was about half of what it cost. FP: Well, the freight was about half of what the cost of grain would be, but the government had about all this grain you know, and the dry land farmers were hit hard with the depression, so Roosevelt, he got this feed program in and they took this grain off their hands for so much a hundred or bushel and distributed it out to us drought stricken areas and that got rid of their surplus grain and gave the dry farmers a little money too. But it was all through a government aid program that was. That grain deal. BD: Did you have to seek any loan or any special assistance during the depression? FP: No, the only loan I got was a Federal Land Bank Loan on my farm and that’s to pay off the loan I already had on it from the state land office. That wasn't a special feed loan, I never got a feed loan. BD: About your farm, you said you bought it from a Real Estate Agent. Did he buy it from the original owner? FP: No, he bought it from Sleighs. Sleighs traded it in to them and bought a farm over to Delta, and they lost the farm in Delta and, of course, this farm was a down payment and that one and so they lost it too. BD: Where did Sleighs get the land from? Did they homestead it or? FP: No they bought it from John Twitchell and John Twitchell bought it from my dad. He was the man who homesteaded it. BD: Your dad homesteaded it then. 10 FP: My dad homesteaded and then he sold it to John Twitchell and he sold it to Tom Sleigh and then Sleigh mortgaged it to this man well it was Earnest McGary and Earnest Hoges, the two real estate men who had it, and that is who I bought it from. BD: You have, you can trace right back to when it was taken from the public and use as a homestead. FP: Yeah, it was homesteaded right around about the time this country was surveyed. You see there were school sections in here and who ever in this field of merchants down here. They would homestead it, see, and then to come to find out it was a school section after it was surveyed and so of course, they had to get title through the state in order to get title to it. They couldn't, at that time you couldn't homestead a state school section because it was set aside for school. Every so many sections and then there was a school section to finance a school. So after they got it surveyed, it was whatever land happened to be on a school section, why the man who homesteaded it had the right to it. Squatters’ rights and they got it from the state land office there. BD: So, there were a, with dealing with the government in some form or other ever since the land was first settled here. FP: Yes, you see, when we bought this farm, there used to be a state land office and they would loan money to farmers and this place had a mortgage on it with the state land office when we got it so we just assumed the mortgage and paid McGary and Hoges off and then when Roosevelt got in he put this new loan out during the depression. See, that they had three years without interest. So that is the reason that we refinanced through the federal land bank. You see, we got three years without any interest so we paid the state land office off and got our mortgage through the Federal Land Bank. 11 BD: Now, ever since the depression, the government has had sort of a hand in your pocket with taking your tax money. Do you think that helps the fanner out in any way besides taking the tax money? FP: Well, that Federal Land Bank, it’s been mighty big help to farmers because it got cheap money and cheap rate interest and longtime loans. You can get up to thirty five years if you wanted it, or it could be paid off before and I think it has been a big help to farmers. And that was a government sponsored deal. BD: Is the government limited you to what kind of crops you can run. FP: Well, if you joined that soil conservation, why they would tell you how much you could raise, and there is the wheat program, they tell you how much wheat you could raise and how much feed grain you could raise, and then there was a small payment on the ground that you didn't raise any grain on. But I never did have that program, I never did swallow it, and they never told me what to rise because I never joined up with it. BD: Do you think it would be beneficial to have joined it? FP: Oh, I think I could have made a little money, especially a year like this, this land that this year when I got ready to plant I could have put it in the soil bank and got a little payment on it. BD: So, this program, the soil conservation program has lasted since-- FP: Yes, it is still on. It kind of limits them to try to hold down the surplus of feed grain and the surplus of wheat and so on. That's what it was put out for. BD: Now this comes, from those big, a, this conservation thing, is where the big farm subsidies come from, isn't it? FP: Yeah, it is. 12 BD: DO you agree? FP: SDA they call it. BD: Do you agree with the ideas that a farmer can leave his land bear and get paid for it or does that kind of rub you the wrong way? FP: Well, I don't like that. So if I just want to raise a patch of grain, I want to raise it, and if I want to raise hay, I can raise it so I don't figure what pay I would get out of it would be worth having them tell me what I could raise and what I couldn't. So I just never joined up in it. BD: But, to belong to it that was strictly voluntary? FP: No, you weren’t forced into it. BD: This started during the depression. Was there anything that you were forced to do during the depression. FP: No most of it was voluntary. You could, they would put out loans for a lot of people to buy cows and get started up in the dairy business and so on. But you could either borrow and get in on their programs or stay out. We never joined it so it's voluntary. BD: You are surrounded by a lot of federal land, aren't you? FP: Yes, we are surrounded on three sides by federal land. BD: Can you just drive your cattle onto this, you mentioned before about buying a permit, but are you limited as to the number of cows you can drive on? FP: Yeah, your permit, whatever the number your permit calls for, that's all you can put on. You see there are two separate grazing divisions. We graze on the National Forest, the State National Forest and we graze on the BLM and that is two heads, see, and the BLM 13 is a different deal altogether. It’s a government plot, but it is run by a different office than the forest ground is. BD: Which one do you choose to get the cattle on to deal with? FP: Well, there's not too much difference in the dealings with them but the BLM is the handiest to get your cattle on and off because it’s the lowest valley. You put near have to go through BUM to get on the forest. So it joins the forest land on the lower part of the range. And the higher part all belongs to the forest service. BD: Do you have to, besides buying this permit, start out, do you have to pay fees each year for your cattle? FP: Oh yes, you have to pay a graze fee every year, both to the forest and the BLM, so much per head. BD: So it's still cheaper, though, to graze your cattle than to feed them hay? FP: Yes, it’s a little cheaper to graze than on the forest or the BLM either than just feeding hay. If you've got a good pasture, I don't know if they aren't just as well off, but people who don't have good pasture are way better off in the forest or BLM than feeding them hay. BD: Now, are the BLM and forest constituted and functioned each year? FP: Well, the BLM wasn't here when we, it was just the national forest and the public domain to start with. Then BLM took the public domain over and that’s when the homestead law was repealed. Then we mad the BLM out of the domain, cause, see you couldn't homestead it anymore. It was all up for public use for grazing and recreation and timber and so on. But that was done during Roosevelt time. When Roosevelt was president and the BLM has been into effect ever since. 14 BD: It seems like most of the changes the fact that the farmer came about during the Roosevelt administration. FP: Yeah, he was quite a doer. He was a big spender and did a lot of things. He did a lot of good. BD: Do you think it would be beneficial to the country to have another big spender in the office to help everybody out again? FP: Well no, the way the government is in debt now, I don't think that that big spending would do too good now. The government is getting in debt so far that I think that they need a little more conservation in the government than they have already got. But when Roosevelt took over, the nation was broke. The people were broke, and nobody had a job and you couldn't get a job and everybody was hungry. There were thousands of families just don't, all they was living on was a little hand outs and when he got in they got what you call the PWA and WPA and that took, and the CCC and that took thousands of men to work it. It wasn't high wages but it still gave something to do so that they could make a living and have a little bit to eat. In case of that kind, there wasn't very much that could be done, he done about the only thing that could to keep the country from going plum crazy and bankrupt. BD: I've heard tell that there is a dam up on North Creek by the lake. Was it built in this time or was it… FP: Well that was built before, oh it started, I don't remember just when, but it was built years ago with horses, and men and horses drove up and built that dam with scrapers. BD: It wasn't part of the new deal then? FP: No. That was built before the new deal come in. 15 BD: During this time did the state government help at all or did it-- FP: On that dam. BD: Yes. FP: Well, you see, we never proved up on it until after some government programs did come into effect. And I think they did make a new contribution on the cement overflow. They paid a little on that, I think. BD: That's helped improve your water supply? FP: Oh yes, but that is such a small reservoir that we need a couple more just like it. BD: I've also heard mention that there was talk at one time of building another one larger way down the canyon. FP: Yes, there are two different sights that they were going to build on, but they could never get the farmers together on it. It's mostly the farmers fault. They couldn't seem to get together, everyone was reluctant to put in a dam. BD: Why were they reluctant? FP: Well it's so expensive and they are not big sights and the only water we could store was water we already owned. So we do have water we could use to fill it with. BD: Now, you would store the water during the winter and spring run off to use? FP: No, we would have to, the water we would store would be during the irrigation season. You see we have got some D and E water that we own that we could run into a reservoir. BD: The only time that you would be able to do that is? FP: The creek is high. The creek has to be up to fifty second feet before that D water is any good. BD: Now take a day, like today, how many second feet would be in the creek? 16 FP: Today? BD: Yes. FP: There is about six. BD: About six. So it would be— FP: Way below average. BD: So for this D and E water to come into effect, it would have to run about ten times as much water. FP: It would have to run at least ten times as much. BD: What do you think about the current price freezes and wage controls and all this? Does this affect you any? FP: Well no, I don't think it has hurt me or helped me, I don't think. Stuff is so high any way that there isn’t much use of it going any higher, so it's a good thing if they could hold it where it is I believe. BD: Do you think that another new deal right now with not maybe so much spending, but with a lower interest rate would be beneficial? FP: Well, if they got to putting out cheaper money it may hurt the economy and the whole country, I wouldn't know. I'm not, you see, cheap money when they got cheap money it drops bank rates and when you drop bank rates, they have got to drop what they're paying on it to the stockholders for interest, so I think it would be just a give and take. I don't think it would do a bit of good to...what they do need is jobs for everybody. That is what helps the economy if the people are making money, they are going to spend money and it's always for stuff that is being manufactured by or raised by produce or that is what keeps us a strong economy is to have the people all working, drawing their money, I 17 always did say that if you put a lunch bucket in all the working men’s hand and we are going to have a pretty good economy. BD: So what you are advocating here is keep jobs for everybody. FP: I don’t, I think that is right. I don't believe in this free gift business. If a person is able to work, I think he should have a job, if there is any possible way. There is always work that he could be, a lot of these men who have been getting direct relief that ought to be on jobs made for them so they would have to work for it. Is that long enough? BD: If you have got some more time, I'd appreciate it. FP: What do you want to know about then? FP: Well, these underground water tables are lowering all the time, so the elevation will be more for new next ones, drilling for this underground water to irrigate with. BD: Now, you have never wanted to have a well to irrigate with or anything, have you? FP: Yes, I got a permit to build one years ago, and never could get enough money ahead to drill one, so I finally had to drop it. BD: Now, can't you pick up back on that permit? FP: I don't think so. BD: Out by Milford they have wells, don't they? FP: Yeah, they have wells here in Beaver too, you know. Yeah, they have got wells in Beaver, but the only way that you can get a well now is to buy one and have it transferred to where you wanted it if you didn't want it where it was. 18 BD: Like this permit, for your cattle when they graze. This seems like it is a little discriminatory, because if you don't have money you can’t have a well and that's tough. Is this kind of how it works? FP: Well, a new well was like a new automobile in them days. If you had enough money and could afford it you would go and buy yourself a new automobile, and if you didn't have enough money you would have to go without one. That is the way it is with the well, if you couldn't get enough money together, to have it drilled you just didn't get a well, that's all. Then we never had the power up here and we would have had to run it with a gasoline motor and they're explosive. Of course, we now got power up here. That is another thing Roosevelt done, he got a lot of these rural areas with the power that they didn't have it before. He got that REA that put a lot of power around for people that never had power before. He was a Roosevelt, was a real far-seeing good president, I think. BD: If he was running this year, would you vote for him again? FP: Yes, if he was alive and running for president I would vote for him. I wouldn't care if he was a Democrat or a Republican. He was a good man a good president for the country. You take these programs that he put into effect, they still are paying off. This REA will pay off as long as there is a country using it. BD: Now, when did you get your power here in your house? Was it during the depression? FP: Now it was after the depression before we got it up here, I think it was about 1935 or 1936 or somewhere along there. Maybe later than that, I don't remember just for sure. BD: Now, you have a well here for your homes use, can't you expand that one out so you could irrigate your crops with it? 19 FP: No, you are only entitled to so much water, just for your household and a little bit around your place. That's all the wells good for. That's all they will let you use of it. That is a six inch well with a two inch pump and that is the best you can do. BD: So there would be no way that you could increase that over--? FP: No, not that I know of. BD: Now about your house, have you always had running water in your home? FP: No we dug a well here and then we drew it out of the well in a bucket until we got the power and then we put on an electric pump and put the water into the house. You were about what, three years old. How old are you now? BD: Twenty-two. FP: That was about seventeen years ago when we got the water into the house the. Your dad hauled the outfit down from Salt Lake in that old Studebaker Truck. Y 0 u were just a baby then. That's when I had to give you, I guess I hadn't ought to tell that though, I guess. BD: Go ahead. That's fine. FP: We bought you something and you wanted to ride it, so I held it and you sat on it on my lap all the way from Salt Lake back out to Timpy. BD: I'd like to see you hold me on your lap now. FP: I enjoyed holding you then, you were just a little fellow. BD: Actually then, Roosevelt’s benefits have extended from the 30’s clear to today. FP: Plum through to now. He did a lot of good in this country and there will be monuments to his memory as long as there is a country here, I don't think they have had a president before or since that had done as much for the country as did he. That is my opinion on 20 that. That's just one man's opinion, but that's mine. He was for all the people, we wasn't just for the few money people. BD: I asked you about our current president, President Nixon, he's just taken the limit off the beef. Do you think that is a wise thing to do? FP: No, and according to the price of everything else now, beef isn't as high now as it ought to be. When you pay $2.20 for a twelve inch pipe, thirty five cents a pound for prime beef on the hoof isn't too much. BD: Who is keeping the money? There is a couple dollars. FP: Yeah, there is a middle man claims he's not getting it, but the butcher is getting it. The middle man is getting a big cut out of that, they claim not, but they would have to be. I sold some here not too long ago for twenty five cents a pound, good beef and it is going out of the stores all way from eighty cents to two dollars per pound. There is quite a spread there that somebody is getting. The housewife is complaining that she is paying too much for it but… BD: If you sold your beef for any less, you wouldn't make money. FP: No, you make a little money on the beef now, but if they get less the way everything else is, then you pay up to as high as seven thousand dollars for just a small tractor to run the farm with, you have got to make pretty good money off of something to pay for it. You take a farm like ours is, the overhead on the machinery and the cost of keeping it up is terrific. The machinery is worth more than the farm is. In actual dollars it would cost you more. BD: Could I change tapes here, and I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the cost of your tractors. Tape 2 21 BD: We are going to talk a little bit now about your tractors and implements and the cost of upkeep on them if we may. FP: Well, just to show you the difference in the cost of tractors, I bought one right after or during World War II, a nice tractor then. It was a good one for thirteen hundred dollars. Brand new. The last one I bought cost me sixty five hundred so that is an increase of nearly five times, in fifteen to twenty years. Of course, it is a better tractor, but you can't farm without it and they are too expensive for the small farmers. That's the reason that the small farmers are going out. There is getting fewer farms and bigger farms. That's the reason. The overhead is too high. BD: How many pieces of equipment do you have? FP: Well, I have a couple tractors, a swather, a bailer, a combine, we tried to limit it to that without getting more to keep them up and sort of take care of them. We used to do a little custom work with them to kind of help pay them off, but you can't do any custom work now because everybody owns their own rigs. That kind of hurt the custom deal part. The custom work helped pay the first two tractors off that I owned. BD: Now, how big of tractors do you have? How are they, are they very big? FP: Well, the first one I got was thirty five hundred horsepower. The last one I got was fifty seven. BD: Now this is taxi-pull draw bar horsepower, isn't it. FP: Yeah, this is taxi-draw bar horsepower. BD: You said that your new tractor has got fifty seven as compared to thirty five of your old tractor. Will it do about a fourth more work? 22 FP: Yes, it will do about double the work, you see, it's got a different hook up and is a more updated tractor, more up dated machinery and implements to work on it so it will do about double the work. BD: So it only takes about half the time to do, say you’re plowing or something. FP: Yeah, it will about double, the work though than the old one done. BD: Now, did you use the team and hand plow up until World War II or then. Now let’s take an acre of ground and say when you were using your team, how long would it take you to plow it and get it ready to plant? FP: I used to plow hard all day on an acre a day. Now you plow seven or eight. There is that much difference. BD: Was that real hard? FP: No, I'm not tired, I used to plow with a hand plow you know, and you had to walk behind it all the time. The tractor, of course, this new one with power steering, you can drive it all day without being tired, even if I am old. BD: How did you harvest your crops? FP: Well we used to cut it, you know, with a binder, cut the grain with a binder, stack it in a bundle and have it thrashed. The hay we would cut it with a mowing machine and put into piles and haul it loose. Stack it. BD: Now, this thrashing machine, was it one of these big old steam ones or FP: Yes, we used to thrash with those old steam engines thrashers. They would come in thrash your grain for about thirteen bushel on a hundred. Then that was the charge. BD: You had to do more furnish your train. 23 FP: Oh yeah, you had to take the grain away from the thrasher and keep it away and put it in the bin yourself. All they did was thrash it. You had to sack it and move it away from the thrasher. BD: For thirteen bushels out of every hundred. FP: Thirteen out of every hundred. BD: Did you own your own binder and this? FP: No I used to hire it cut. I never did own a binder. I used to have to hire it cut until the binder and they charged you about one hundred pounds of grain per acre to cut it. And I hired it cut up until about twenty years ago. Along in there I bought a little combine. It's done quite a little bit of cutting. That's what I cut my grain with up until the last few years. It was slow but it done the job real nice. BD: Like total cost, how much would you say you had invested? FP: I imagine about fifty thousand I have invested in it, in the farm and the equipment and everything. BD: A farm is not a cheap buy of land? FP: No, for a young man just starting out if he is got to pay interest on the money he buys his farm with, and the money he buys his machinery with, the interest would put near eat him up. I just think it’s an uphill job. BD: You don't think that a young person like me could go to the bank and get a lean and make ends meet. FP: No, no I don't. I don't think that there is a big enough income off that farm to pay it back. BD: Do you think this explains maybe how come a lot of young people around here have moved away and are not staying to farm? 24 FP: That is the reason that they are moving away. There is no nothing here for young people to stay so they are just moving away, where they can get the jobs and work for wages. A good job beats a farm now, pretty easy. Because you don't have the responsibility, and all the up keep and the interest to pay and you take a man that is a common laborer and if he is qualified to handle his job about all the investment he has got is his way to work and his lunch basket. The young farmer, he has got to have fifty or one hundred thousand dollars investment before he can do anything. The only boy, young fellow that can go ahead and farm is one that, you know, that inherit a farm to start with. They then got a base to start from. BD: You mentioned back that you were a laborer and worked for wages for a while, sheering sheep. What kind of salary did you get back then as compared with--? FP: Well, when I bought just before I was married, when I was about eighteen I worked for a farmer down here by the name of Knox for $2.50 per day. And you were pretty sure of course, to have your own meals. And if you work with a team, you got $4.00 per day. Then I sheered sheep for quite a long while for ten cents per head. BD: How long would it take you to do a sheep? FP: Well, I could do about forty a day with blades. With the machine sheers, I could get up to about one hundred but I never sheered much with a machine. I always used just the little hand sheers. BD: That was hustling as soon as it was light? FP: Yes, that's putting in about ten hour day at least. That is about all the day you can take sheering sheep. It is awful hard work. Well, the deer hunting used to be when I was a young man. It was real good and was pretty easy to get a nice trophy buck if you wanted 25 to spend a little time hunting. I've hunted deer about every deer season ever since I was sixteen. BD: Has there always been a season on deer hunting? FP: Ever since I was old enough to hunt, there has. There has been a deer season here for 55 years or so. It was closed for several years just before I started to hunt. They didn't allow any hunt at all and as the deer herd got back up to where they wanted, there has been an open season on them every year since. BD: I see you have got a fairly nice head here on your wall. FP: Yeah, I've killed some nice bucks. BD: Were they all taken fairly close to your house. FP: No, I went quite a ways up in the hills for a lot of them. Some of them I've got pretty close. I have more deer running in my hay stack here in the winter now than when I first moved here in a whole year. They are getting more domesticated than they used to be. They come into your fields at night and leave in the day time. They are just naturally hard to control. BD: Now, does the state fish and game people allow you to shoot these deer that get into your haystack or any way control them? FP: Well, there is a provision where they can be killed, but I've never wanted to do that. I've kicked up good fuss to the game warden to try to chase them out, but I've never tried to have them killed. I don't like to do that. You can, you can kill deer that are bothering you if you want to, but I've never wanted to. I rather the state do that. That is their problem, not mine, to keep the deer off somebody’s field. BD: Do you lose quite a bit of money a year in deer damages and rabbits and things like that? 26 FP: I figured last winter they ruined three or four hundred dollars of hay for me alone. Just through the winter, without what they eat in the summer. BD: Now, this three or four hundred dollars’ worth, was this baled and then stacked? FP: Yeah, it was already in the stack that they destroyed. BD: Is there no way you could estimate how much they ate out of the fields? FP: No, they would just feed over the whole field and no end. There was no way we could really tell how much they did take, but there is deer in there just about all summer, and all fall, and all winter. BD: Do the little animals like rabbits and porcupines destroy much? FP: No, no the rabbits don't get thick enough. I'm a little bit too high for rabbits to hurt me very much. You get down on the desert area say down around Milford and aids. The farm on aids there gets hurt pretty bad with rabbits, but they don't hurt us much here. BD: Do you rent some land there at one time, didn't you? FP: We farmed over to Milford for about seven or eight years. Had pump wells. Dry years they were. So we lease the farms over there to help us out to get a little hay. BD: How does that work out? FP: Well, it, they raise good hay over there, but it is expensive to run a good farm like that and to haul hay home. It is just about as cheap to buy it so we give up on the farms over there. BD: So now, when you come short on hay, you just buy hay. FP: Buy hay instead of leasing. BD: Do you find that is easier though from your standpoint FP: Yeah, and your equipment you see, you have to haul your equipment over there and takes lots of time and wear and tear on it. I think it is just cheaper to buy hay than it is to 27 lease farms that far away. If we was living over there it would be a different thing, but when there is a drought there no use of leasing a farm close here, because they are all in the same boat that we are. No water, they don't raise much hay. But Milford with those pump wells raise beautiful hay, BD: Were the pumps started when that was first settled over there or has this been a new development? FP: No the first settlement over there was an experiment farm and they took water from Midvale Reservoir. That, they had a farm that they called the experiment farm. They raised hay and grain and potatoes there just to see what the ground would produce. Then there were thirteen different guys that drilled wells or dug wells and had them drilled. Then they were the first ones that started pumping it. Since then I guess there is several hundred running there now. But they proved very successful. BD: Do they get a higher acre yield on their well irrigated land over there than you do here? FP: No, I don't think that they get any higher yield per acre on an average year. But on years like this one, we are short on water, they will get about three times as much hay as we will. But a good year, I can raise as much hay as they can. BD: So actually you're limited back to here then is your availability of water. FP: Yeah, our water is what limited us here as to what we can produce if we don't have any water, we just don't plow hay. You have got to have water. A year like this, you see, we've been real short. BD: Well, if the water up here is so short, doesn't that affect the water in the valley down towards Milford a little bit? 28 FP: Well, it doesn’t seem to hurt it too much. They claim and claim it will, but it doesn't seem to bother it much. BD: Do you think you, in your lifetime, will see the wells dry up over there? FP: No, I don't think so. Their water table is lower than it was forty years ago, of course, because they were only pumping out of very few wells and then, now they are pumping one hundred or so wells, why of course, the water table is bound to go down some. BD: Now you mentioned with your private well here, it was a six inch well with a two inch pump. How big are the wells over in Milford that irrigates the water? FP: Most of them now that they are drilling, all of the new ones are fourteen inches. BD: Now that the whole that goes down? FP: That's the well. I think that they have got a six and eight inch pump. BD: How did they power these pumps? FP: All electricity. The first ones they put in were all with gasoline motors. Then they got to putting in the electric pumps. BD: How big of motor does this have? FP: Well, it depends on how deep you are pumping. You see, some of these wells are going down quite deep and have to have too as high as thirty-five hundred horsepower motor. The deeper the pump the more horsepower it takes. BD: Now again, that is taxi-bar horsepower, is it not? FP: I think it is figured out as a kilowatt power in some way. BD: So you are talking of something bigger than thirty-five hundred horsepower Volkswagen engine. 29 FP: Oh yeah. It would be a gasoline motor, would a, it has to have more horse power than an electric motor to run the same load. Then electricity is so much more dependable than the gasoline motors so that....those electric pumps are real nice. BD: When you were over to Milford, what type of pumps did you have? FP: Electric. We had one well that run about four second feet. That we run there. They have got some beautiful wells. BD: Now that one well there produces almost as much as your creek here does. FP: Yeah, damn much as there is here in the creek right now. BD: Now that, like you say in September, when it is real dry and the creek is about completely dried up, that well will still produce that four second feet of water? FP: Yes. They fall off in July and August they don't get as large flow as they get in the spring when the water table is higher. The further they lift it the less they get but the same time it is still good all through the summer. Yeah, if I was a young man again, that is where I would go is on a pumper. I would never settle on a creek water. BD: Is the land more expensive there where there are wells? FP: It is now, but it didn't used to be as expensive as a creek water land. But now it is more expensive. You see, your pump costs you quite a bit to have it installed and keep it up and then your power bill is quite high. But it's a lot more expensive water than the creek water is. But it will produce a lot more. BD: Now can I draw back and ask you about your grandfather and your father a little bit more. You said that your grandfather was the first white man to see Puffer Lake. That he was hunting bears up there. Did they just homestead then for a living here. 30 FP: Grandfather never did farm. He never did own a farm. He worked around different jobs, but he never did own a farm here. Grandfather Puffer didn't. He was quite an old hunter and quite an old scout. He did a lot of work around. My grandfather and grandmother Lynn they come from England over here. Converts to the church. They come right from England to Beaver. Then he was an old gardener. He used to raise a garden for his living. Sold his vegetables that he raised, his potatoes, stuff, but grandfather Puffer never did own a farm. He owned a home down there in Beaver down there, a log cabin. They all were log houses then. BD: I read once where there was a Puffer that was credited with killing the largest bear in the state. Was that your grandfather? FP: That was my father. BD: Your father? FP: He and a fellow by the name of William Twitchell killed the larges bear. One of the largest bears killed in the state, an old grizzly. Killed him up here east of our place in Coal Canyon. BD: It's just a couple of miles up the canyon here. FP: Yes, about two or three miles up the canyon. But he was a monster. BD: How much did he weigh? FP: They didn't weigh him, but he measured sixteen feet from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. They hauled him out on a logging cart. BD: Has there been much logging up there? FP: Well, there has been a lot of timber took out of these canyons, over the past years all the timber that they could get too they took out. That was quite a deal here. There used to be 31 a lot of work on the saw mills and they used to sell a lot of limber. Then they were, he bought these tie for the railroads with a broad ax. Before they ever, sawed them they hauled thousands out plum out to Frisco and that is south of Millcreek. You know them ties, it takes lots of them, and they hauled a lot of them out of here. BD: Now your land here, was it timber at one time? FP: Well, there was some along the creek. They would grow along there, even the spruce and the ponderosa pine. They would cut them all out, there isn't any left. They were beautiful trees, I don't remember them but my dad says that there was one over there by the creek that was better than four feet through it. Do you see the stump there by the gas tank? BD: Yes I see it. FP: We used to have a play house under there for us kids to play under. Said never did have enough storm to go through that tree. It would always be dry underneath it. BD: There was some mining activities here, wasn't there? FP: Yes, to start with here years ago, why they were some pretty rich gold showing found but they all petered out. A man by the name of Neut Hill discovered this Sheeprock mine. They had ore there that went up into the thousands. They even built got electricity in here and took an electric plum out to the mine, put an electric hoist in, and put an electric stamp mill down in here to mill it. It petered out and that is the way it goes. BD: When did they go broke? FP: When I was about seven or eight. It was about 1913. Well, my dad and mother run the boarding house out there for years. BD: So you were out to Sheeprock mine during--? 32 FP: Oh yeah, I was out there when you take Congressman Abe Murdock, run the electric hoist out there to Sheeprock mine. You've heard of him? BD: Yeah. FP: Well, he run the electric hoist out there for quite a long while. BD: They just run out of gold and-- FP: They run out of gold and they never have been able to find any that has been any good since, but they were several outcroppings. There was the Beaver Gold on the north and when we named the Creek Canyon, there was a Rob Roy that had some rich ore for a long while. And out in Fortune they found some more. But they all petered out. BD: Was there any uranium prospecting or anything during the 50's? FP: Yes, there has been claim took up all over the mountain for uranium, but they’re not working any of them. They did a lot of work up in one up North Fork up here in North Creek. They spent a lot of money on that one but they took a lot of stuff out of it but I don't think we ever been any pay days on it. BD: Did you prospect any? FP: Well, no, not much. I never was much for prospecting. I wasn't too interested in it. I always liked to raise crops and cattle. That is what I liked. So I never prospected much. BD: You mentioned that the gold mine had electricity to it. After the gold mine fell, did they, was the electrical lines taken down or? FP: Yeah, they had a line from up here about our place that went down to the stamp mill, from the teleroid line. The man that put the line in here his name was Blainey and he was the one that was the engineer that put in the teleroid dam and the teleroid plant here in Beaver and then they got him to come here and he was the engineer to put the stamp mill 33 in. It was a side light mill. And he put that in and, of course, they run that line over here and put them big transformers in to cut that power down more so they could use it. I don't know why they ever took them away but they did when they went broke, they took them transformers off and left North Creek without any power, you see. BD: You stayed that way for twenty or thirty years? FP: Yes, we stayed that way for years. BD: You mentioned too, you now have running water in your home. Is that, does your well stay good enough that your well stays running? FP: No, it, we need a new well. It has been pretty good, on an average year it is pretty good. We can't water a lawn or anything with it. We need to get a bigger pump and a deeper well so that we can water around the house with it. BD: Now will you be able to transfer your-- FP: I've already got it transferred from a dug well to a drill well, two hundred feet. BD: You won't be able to go deeper than that? FP: No, I can go two to three hundred feet. BD: What happens then if you don't find water at three hundred feet? FP: Well, if I don't get water at three hundred feet, I can still go further, if I can afford it. BD: You can't make that well big enough to irrigate your land? FP: No, I can't use it for that. They will allow me for around the household and stock water and that is it. Then you can't get any irrigation wells now. They've been out for quite a while. BD: You mentioned that you were going to drill a well here. But you said that you couldn't get enough money at the time to drill it. What would the cost have been when you had your permit to drill it and then, say, now. 34 FP: Well, when I got that permit, it would have run me around five or six thousand to have it drilled. That is without the pump and motor. BD: What do you think it would cost you today to do it? FP: Well it would cost you more than that now, quite a lot more. BD: Three times as much or what? FP: No, I think around eight to ten thousand to drill it. Of course, the pump would cost too. Those big pumps are expensive and those electric motors are. It would cost probably fifteen to twenty thousand by the time you got it finished. BD: So it's not something you just go out and do without too much forethought? FP: No, you, that was a big stumbling block for a lot of them. They couldn't get enough money together to get them drilled and the pump installed. Well, you can shut it down until you think of anything you want to ask me. BD: Well, can you think of anything you want to say? FP: So you won't waste the tape. BD: Tell me if you can about the homesteading of the lands through here and the school section if you can. FP: You see, there are still school sections. There are school sections on the forest, on the BLM both. And the forest leases theirs to the fish and game. And I don't know what the BLM does with them but you can't buy them. If it had been bought, some well do bunch like the ones that put that ski resort up in Beaver Canyon, they might could get a hold of it but, the common layman can't get a holt of them school sections no more. BD: So it would take a little political pull and a lot of money too. FP: A lot of money and quite a bit of pull to get it. Especially them on the forest. 35 BD: It sounds like that would almost take an act of congress. FP: You take those on the forest, they are really owned by the state and the state owns the deer so they just give the fish and game a 99 year lease on it with a chance to renew it. That's it. BD: Now the state owns all the deer and that on the forest. FP: Yeah, they are state owned. The government doesn’t get anything out of the deer that are killed. That is the reason that the government doesn’t like the deer too well. BD: But they like the deer hunters because it is better than -- FP: Well, they don't get much of revenue out of the hunters, but the state gets a lot out of the hunters. They get a license and, of course, there are some government taxes that gets back to the government of the deer herd but not too much. BD: You mentioned that you have had a deer every year since you were real young. You've got some nice ones. Have you ever capitalized on this any people hunting and-- FP: Not very much, you know I don't think that is the only vacation I have been taking for years and when I go deer hunting I don't want a bunch of California guys or a bunch of greenhorns bothering me. I want to get out and hunt deer and forget everything else and get my hunting done. BD: You would like to kind of limit the hunting here to native people. FP: Yeah, we just hunt the sport hunting, not to make money. There are a lot of them pack deer hunters in and pack them out and make good money at it too. BD: You don't agree with that? FP: No, I don't want that. 36 BD: Have you ever lost any animals, say a good experienced California greenhorn hunter or--? FP: Well, I have lost one cow. I don't know if it was a native that killed her or whether it was an outside hunter. It just has to be one or the other. I don't think there outside hunters are a bit more careless than the natives are. In fact some of the California guys that come in are real good sports. We have had a few stay here and I thought a lot of, just last fall. Good sports. Yeah, I enjoyed hunting with some of them. But that deer hunt is something I always have kind of looked forward to. It's run my family back clear back as I can recollect. My grandfather liked to hunt. My dad liked to deer hunt, I like to deer hunt, my kids like to deer hunt, my grandkids like to deer hunt, and so it kind of gets in your blood, I guess. BD: I'll ask you a personal question about, the gun you gave me to deer hunt with, how long had it been in the family? FP: I don't know. My dad bought it from an old blacksmith down there. He had it I guess for about twenty years. It was an old gun when he got it, second hand. BD: So deer hunting has been in the family ever since they came to Utah. FP: My dad used to go deer hunting when he was past eighty and he did better than I. I won't go hunting till...I'll do good if I get through to 70. BD: The reason that I asked that is that Winchester is similar to the one that is in the John M. Browning Museum. It says that it is an original inventor’s model. Take that Winchester and look at the one in the window that is the original inventor’s model and the only difference is the serial number on the barrel. The one the family has is one thousand something thirty one and his has number one on it and that is the only thing I have ever noticed as any different. 37 FP: That old gun you got is an old Winchester, but it was altered, they cut the magazine off to make it lighter, but that doesn't really— BD: It had an eleven shot magazine on it, now but it is…? FP: To what, five? BD: I noticed, like I said, when I have been to the museum, the only difference I could see that the Browning original gun had the short magazine on it also. That was the only difference I could see was the serial number. FP: That is a pretty old gun. They really socialized on the deer hunting, because a lot of them made a practice to pick up quite a large group and charge them so much to take them up and so much to bring them back. But the deer hunters are getting away from that. Most of them go pack themselves now days. You can't blame them. BD: I know, you said that you kind of frowned on this, but I've been told that if it wasn't for the out of state fees the fish and game couldn't operate as they do. Do you agree with this or what do you think? FP: That is what I think, you see, they get it costs them about five times as much as it does the natives. And I'd imagine if it wasn't for the outside hunters, they wouldn't be able to operate as well as they do. You take the forest, they got all these camp sights and it costs the people a dollar a day per car to go in there and stay. BD: Even everyone it seems like that they benefit to know that the people who live around and can't find a place because they are all gone. FP: The deer hunting is getting so it is pretty rough here, there are still a lot of deer but they drive them into the timber and then they are hard to find. BD: Until they get down here on your bailed hay. 38 FP: They wait until after the deer hunt is all over then they all come out again. And I put about fifty acres of grain in plowed all that hand plow and I raised better than 800 bushel of grain and plowed it all with the hand plow. Trying to band broadcast. SP: And that is when the mothers took... BD: Go ahead, grandma, go ahead SP: When I sat on the harrow and harrowed it with my two little kids. BD: All that is done now by machinery. FP: Oh yes, I couldn't walk that far in a day now even if I wanted to. I used to walk four horses to death. SP: And I drove than while he helped with the hand plow. BD: A team, how many horses did you have pulling? FP: Two. BD: And they weren't just little riding horse, they were big horses. FP: The last two I had, one of them weighed put near seventeen hundred. The black one and the other one weighed sixteen. That old team they were a pleasure to drive. I called them my pets. BD: How much a day would it take to feed a horse that big? FP: You raised your own feed, you see, you raised your own feed and if you had work too, why you could raise your own replacements, but I never did. I think we would still be better off working a few horses. If I had Old Tory and Old Jab I'd fix up to use them right now even. BD: What would be the advantages? Is it cheaper? 39 FD: Well they are cheaper. You raise your own fuel you might say. You can raise your own replacements. Another thing is that the horse, he eats when they don't work but the tractor don't, but it depreciates whether or not you are using it. So I wouldn't go back to horses, but I always did like a good team. I didn't like saddle horses much but I always liked a team. BD: Well, did you ever have a buckboard or a wagon or anything? FP: No, I never had a buckboard; but I had two wagons that we worked the horses on. When I was a kid my dad used to have a buggy and we drove and we had a pair of horses we drove. Generally it was just with one horse on it. Just the buggy. He had a buggy for years that he drove to town and back. Mother used to peddle vegetables in it. A one horse and buggy. BD: Now I know that you have found Indian artifacts all around here, were they from this Beaverad Tribe? FP: Yeah. BD: You found some old guns and stuff around them. FP: Yeah, up in the field there, there is a piece of pottery you couldn't pick up now but in the old Indian mines, you know, where they used to live. The Indians used to build up kind of a mud house, you know, then when it caved in of course, it left a mound. We dug in this one up here by the ditch and dug down about three feet and dug out coals, old black coals that the house had caved down on. BD: Has there been any Indian graves around here? FP: Well I've never found any. I think that there is some too, but I just never found them. BD: Do you think there is but you never dug through one and found it? 40 FP: I know there had to have been graves here, but I never really found any. The Indians didn't have much to dig with, they buried them in shallow graves, then they would cover them over with a rocks and that. Of course, they were easy for man and animal to get into it. No indication that anyone was buried in it. We dug a trench through it but we didn't find anything. BD: That is where he found his charcoal and brought it. FP: Charcoal and pocker is all we ever found there. BD: My dad says that up here between the creeks, on that point there are a lot of point mounds. FP: That is where they called their chipping ground. That is where they made their arrow heads. They are just thick up there right on top of the field there on that point. BD: Have you found any arrow heads up there? FP: I have found one or two on the place and never found another. There have been too many people go over it. Turn it off a minute Bruce. BD: This ends tape two on the interview with Fred Puffer. Perhaps there will be a tape at a future time. 41