The Logger's Last Haul: A Runaway Log Kills George Brann on Whidbey Island
A veteran head logger of the Puget Mill Company, who had served in both the army and the navy, was crushed by a log on a steep grade and lived only an hour and a half — leaving a wife and five children.
Conner, June 29. — Special. — George Brann was killed at his logging camp on the north of Whidbey Island this morning at 8 o'clock. He was hauling a log down a steep grade, driving the team himself, when the log ran off from the road and caught Mr. Brann. After dragging him several feet it crowded him against a tree, breaking both thigh bones and mashing his legs to a pulp. He lived only an hour and a half after the accident.
Mr. Brann was born in Maine, was 62 years old and had been on the Sound twenty-three years. He had been head logger for the Puget Mill Company and had followed logging for himself for many years. He enlisted in the Eighteenth Maine regiment, and was transferred to the warship Shenandoah, seeing much service in both the army and navy. He was a member of Camano Lodge, the Masons, at Stanwood, and of [the] lodge of Odd Fellows at La Conner, and was well known throughout the Sound country. He leaves a wife and five children.
“After dragging him several feet it crowded him against a tree, breaking both thigh bones and mashing his legs to a pulp. He lived only an hour and a half after the accident.”
Before the timber industry was mechanised, men drove teams and rode logs down grades by hand, and a single slip could kill. Brann's death — after service in the Civil War's army and navy and more than two decades on Puget Sound — is a reminder of how many of the Northwest's early settlers came for the timber and stayed to bury their dead in it. Logging remains among the most dangerous occupations in the country, and Whidbey Island's forests are still working land.
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