This will be a general view of the area, but I'll be concentrating on the Tremont and Gulf Railroad, its owner at one time, the Tremont Lumber Company and the towns it frequented.
That was the warning. It's time to jump in.
I have always liked the name, "Rochelle". It's a strong feminine name which was worn well by this woman I once knew, briefly. It was the summer of '69.......
Sorry, wrong Rochelle.
The Rochelle that this write eventually entertains was the location of a lumber mill built in 1895. The settlement was named after Henry Rochelle. Bet that took the air out of your balloons.
It's hard to say how I came to know the existence of this place. It lay along a string of little towns north of Georgetown, on US 165, a town Barry had led me to years ago. Recently, Al and I visited near it when we were deliriously following the L&A Railroad from Packton to Ferriday in the 100F heat of August, 2009. Then, Marion has added so much it's a blur.
Al and I just did a short 340 miler up there. I know he was thinking it was going to get long and be another 440 like the L&A ride. Shoot, we even beat the sun down this time with a few minutes to spare. I digress.
Prepare yourself. Rochelle had connections and some are quite surprising. Unknowingly, I ..........
More later, Steve
It's later. I can hear you thinking.
"How about the "Joyce" part of the title?"
I didn't know much until I read this by Mr. Willis, quite a piney woods historian and story teller. Now I know a lot.
But, first you need to know where all this action was taking place. If you can't put a handle on the location it might as well had been on Mars and I know some people are not really interested in what happened on Mars. A broad description would be "northeast of Alexandria, Louisiana, between the north/south main roads, US 167 and US 165, with I-20 capping the area". Suddenly, you are interested. I can see the Stewart Barney hand cupped around your ear pose.
This little map, which needs to be clicked to expand, shows you the area of vast forest which was fodder for the wealth seeking northern entrepreneurs and maybe a few local boys, too. I just said "boys". "Tremont" as in "Tremont Lumber", was certainly a bisexual entity. Feminine power ruled the roost as time went on. My house seems similar. There was also a divorce, hidden wealth and no doubt a scandal or two along the way.
Early Railroads Built for Mills
Tremont operations supported by T&G Railroad in NE Louisiana
By JACK M. WILLIS
Correspondent
My apologies to Mr. Willis for not letting him get started, but you need one more map.
The Tremont's rail holdings are in RED. Click it or get a ticket.
Let me tell you this right now. There are reams of history below. Some documents may be a bit boring, like Mars boring. Do what you can to stay awake. All of this information is applicable to today and tomorrow. Don't pass it up. Tomorrow you may be called on to use it. Be ready!!!
Here's Mr. Willis' fine piece. As I said, he's a great story teller and I didn't have to correct too much of his spailin or dixshun:
In 1901 Robert H. Jenks of Cleveland, Ohio, had acquired lands west of the Ouachita River, in north central Louisiana, which were estimated to eventually produce 600,000,000 board feet of Longleaf yellow pine lumber. To get the timber to a sawmill for processing, one had to have a railroad.
The late Lucious Beebe was the creator of railfans, i.e., people who devour every fact they can glean about historic railroads, mostly the big, famous cross country lines (the all powerful trunk lines with four way traffic lanes and many vice-presidents). But, he chose almost methodically, to tragically overlook until the 1940s, the myriad of short line railroads that criss-crossed between the big main lines. If the cross country lines were the main arteries of the national transportation body, then the short lines were the feeder arteries and veins.
Southern forests had remained comparatively untouched until the northern forest had been depleted in the 1880s. Small quantities of Louisiana timber had been harvested and processed, but only from forest lands bordering waterways. This began to change dramatically with the northern demand for forest resources from the south, and by the end of the 1920s railroads had been built into every nook and cranny of the state. They were necessary to furnish timber to the many mills springing up.
The virgin pine trees, which were so abundant, were centuries old. They only grew at a circumference growth of 1/4 inch per year. One report stated that to furnish the Tremont mill at Eros it took the timber from a forty-acre tract to operate the mill for a 24-hour shift. This enormous demand for timber necessitated short line railroads in profusion. Building a rail line was no easy task, as Jenks so found out. Robert L. Stevens had designed the iron rail in the 1830s, and he is also credited with perfecting the practice of attaching the rails to the ties by means of spikes. Steel rails were perfected during the Southern Struggle for Independence. They were stronger and more durable; thus trains could haul heavier loads. This art of rail laying had been perfected during the logging boom, which was responsible for gutting the forests of the northern tier of the United States.
When William Buchannan began his move southward from Stamps, Arkansas, the Missouri Pacific railroad loaned a Field Superintendent to the Louisiana & Arkansas in the person of E. J. Lassiter, Sr. The northern tycoons were ready and able to furnish such engineering expertise because they wanted to get the finished timber products to market, and get paid for the transport of it.
Actually, the lumbering entrepreneurs had no recourse but to build railroads. After all, they had fortunes tied up in prime real estate. Virgin pine timberlands could be had in 1906 for $14 an acre. By 1919 price of the same type of land had risen to almost $58 an acre, and by 1920 the going price was up to $88 per acre. The investments were apparently worth it. From 1902 to 1935 one big lumber producer shipped an estimated seven billion board feet of lumber, all by rail line.
Recognizing that other timber barons were moving to secure the northern markets, Robert H. Jenks was ready to make his move. Tremont Lumber Company was established just west of Monroe on the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific Railroad (later Illinois Central). He built nine miles of track into the woods south of the sawmill and Jenks chartered it as the Tremont & Gulf. In this, his first venture into railroad construction, he incurred the enormous expense of building a rail line. He found out, in a hurry, to be able to haul sufficient quantities of logs the railway had to be sturdily constructed. This called for approximately 2650 cross ties per mile. The dimensions of the ties were seven inches by nine inches by eight feet long. They were hewed out of pine or scrub oak, which had to be replaced every three years, unless the manufacturer used white oak. There were 272 rails 39 feet long per mile. To hold the rails in place, this necessitated the use of 21,200 spikes per mile. There were two extra spikes used per rail in curves, on sidetracks. and turnarounds. On a standard line, usually laid after 1860, the rails were placed four feet, eight inches apart. Some of the earlier lines, like the one that stretched from Jonesville, Louisiana to Natchez, Mississippi, were of narrow gauge construction, the rails being only three feet apart.
Jenks found out very soon that the mill at Tremont had a limited capacity, in that it could only handle logs no longer than 22 feet. Be that as it may, to cut logs up to 40 feet in length, he built another sawmill at Eros, 10.2 miles from Tremont in 1904. It would seem that timber barons had an affinity for names pertaining to the solar system. Eros derived its name from the 433r asteroid, which had been discovered by a German Astronomer in 1898. Urania was named after the planet Uranus by Henry Hardtner, "the Father of Reforestation". The name means `heavenly body'. Eros quickly became the center of T&G operations. By 1905, the Tremont & Gulf rail line was complete to Chatham, 6.7 miles further south, and most of the timber for the new Eros sawmill was cut in the woods around Chatham.
The T&G was a remarkably busy operation from the very beginning, and a 1905 timetable shows T&G No.10, as "ex-Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 4-4-0 (1879 Baldwin b/n 4470" locomotive handling one passenger run and one mixed train over the line in each direction daily. A brand new Baldwin locomotive, 2-6-2, T & G No. 14, handled three scheduled log trains daily to keep the sawmills busy.
For Tremont Lumber to acquire additional large timber holdings, more financial backing was required. By 1908 Samuel J. Carpenter of Winnfield, La., and William T. Joyce of Chicago would be a major stockholder. Both of these men are significant, in that they would control T&G fortunes for the next fifty years. Construction of the T&G main line continued south in pursuit of the timber and the track was completed into Winnfield on September 5, 1907. While the line out of Tremont was generally rolling pine-clad hills, the newly completed track near Winnfield was largely located in the Dugdemona watershed. Lucious Beebe, the railway historian, described the area in a Deep South Cavalier style, "Along the swamp trestles of the Tremont & Gulf, the Spanish moss trails with churchyard caress along the sides of the passing cars".
In 1908 the company reorganized into the Tremont& Gulf Railway, improved the property and continued in pursuit of the trees construction of branch lines. On May 1, 1908, T&G President William T. Joyce wrote to his board of directors: "The Tremont & Gulf Railway is the outgrowth of the Tremont & Gulf railroad, which in its initial stages was merely a logging road, with rather poor grades and alignment. The road has been practically re-constructed at large expense, all heavy grades and bad curves eliminated and the extensions to Pyburn and Rochelle completed. Our property is now in all respects a standard railroad".
T&G operated branch lines to bring in timber from distant forests and serve company sawmills at temporary locations. But lumbering operations were beginning to moderate; expansion was not necessarily the `watchword' any more. At least three branches built by Tremont Lumber to Daily, Alger, and Bennett were all abandoned by 1909. The 20-mile Jonesboro branch (known as the Shreveport, Jonesboro & Natchez R. R.) was begun in 1906 and operated until shortly after the Jonesboro sawmill cut its last log on August 12, 1915. The easterly Menefee to Rochelle branch served the company sawmill on the Missouri Pacific, formerly belonging to the Louisiana Lumber Co. and purchased in August of 1907. The Rochelle mill was closed in June of 1908 for a ten-month, $600,000 overhaul, which turned it into Tremont Lumber's biggest mill. The T&G also considered an extension of this branch, and maps show the line proposed as far as the Mississippi River town of Vidalia, La. (across from Natchez, Ms.) until 1910. When the Louisiana & Arkansas and Missouri Pacific jointly constructed a branch line, which paralleled this proposed route a few miles to the south in 1913, there was no further reason to push T&G tracks toward the east. T&G eventually tied a spur line into the L&A near Georgetown, La. for marketing purposes to the eastern markets. While T&G's tracks stretched in four directions through the woods, Winnfield (which had a population of 3,000 in 1920) was the only real town of any size on the line, the main shops were removed from Eros to Winnfield in 1918. The Eros sawmill closed in 1926. T&G's mileage dropped from 98.5 miles in 1915 to 66.6 by 1920. Thus began the decline of the once grand railroad. The following observation by an unknown author best sums the demise of the logging railroads: "The train passed by one morning; I saw it go out. When it came back it was pulling up the tracks and ties and loading them on the flat cars the engine was pulling. Soon the train was out of sight and the railroad was gone".
The following is not is not as "concise" as the above, but it adds a little flavoring from another perspective. Notice that Jenks is not mentioned.
T&G Railway connected forestry in region
Former employees of Tremont industries remember 'Good Old Days' in reunion
By MILDRED KING SHELL
The following article was written by Mildred King Shell of Winnfield for the Winn Historical Society, and displayed it at the reunion of former Tremont employees in WInnfield on August 31. (What year Mildred?)
The Tremont & Gulf Railway Company began around 1904, as a logging railroad in conjunction with Tremont Lumber Company during the height of the early timber boom operations. The railroad's history is related to that of Tremont Lumber Company as both were owned by the Joyce interests.
The Chicago-based Joyce family, among whom were William T. Joyce, first president of the Tremont & Gulf, his two sons, David G. Joyce and James Stanley Joyce, and Beatrice Joyce Kean, the daughter of James Stanley Joyce, worked in the development of this region. The local airport was named for David G. Joyce, and the Village of Joyce was named for this family. {The names in red will be eulogized later. During those ulogies you may find similarities to "Designing Women".}
In 1899 the Joyce family, who had previously operated sawmills on the Mississippi River in Iowa from timber logged in Minnesota, acquired a small sawmill at Tremont, Louisiana, in the pine hills of Lincoln Parish, and there Tremont Lumber Company was founded. The lumber industry in the South was beginning to boom, and sawmills were springing up overnight.
The first major expansion following establishment of the Tremont mill was the organization of a logging railroad to operate between the mill and the company's pine land at Eros, Louisiana. This was the beginning of the Tremont & Gulf Railway Company, which was the vital link with logging operations. In rapid-fire order came the acquisition of more mills, along with more acres and more logging railroads, among those the Winn Parish Lumber Company at Dodson and another railroad, a mill at Pyburn, and finally in 1907 the Louisiana Lumber Company at Rochelle in Grant Parish, including two sawmills and the Western Railroad Company with ten miles of track. When a railroad link between Rochelle and Dodson was constructed, Tremont possessed a network of rail transportation ranging from Tremont in the north to Rochelle in the south, with links connecting Chatham, Jonesboro, and Dodson.
The logging road became Tremont & Gulf Railroad in 1905 with William T. Joyce as president. At this time there was endless virgin pine land in the South, and the Tremont & Gulf was lined with numerous sawmills from which flowed an incredible output. After the logging road became a full-fledged railroad, development was begun in earnest and an extension from Chatham to Winnfield was completed in 1907. On September 19, 1907 the Tremont & Gulf rolled its first train into Winnfield. Afterwards the Tremont & Gulf built several branches, the first from Menefee, six miles north of Winnfield, to Pyburn on the Rock Island; another from Menefee to Rochelle; and another from Sikes to Jonesboro. Instead of using the telegraph, the railroad was operated by a telephone switchboard from the train dispatcher's office.
In a reorganization in 1908 the road became the Tremont & Gulf Railway Company, and the general offices were located at Winnfield, where they remained.
During the heyday of railroads in the 1920s the various lines serving Winnfield had 12 passenger trains and 8 freight trains running into Winnfield daily. The Tremont & Gulf had 71 miles of track in 1936, connecting with the Missouri Pacific at Rochelle, Illinois Central at Tremont, O N & W at Gulf Crossing, and Louisiana & Arkansas and Rock Island in Winnfield. It had 100 employees and a $150,000 payroll.
In a book published in 1947, Lucius Beebe and C. M. Clegg, Jr. wrote:
"By far the most enterprising and functionally animate of short lines we encountered in the Deep South was the Tremont & Gulf, which operates out of Winnfield, Louisiana, and maintains no fewer than six separate train movements, four scheduled and two unscheduled, daily over its 97 miles of well-kept iron. While the road is controlled by one of the vast lumber projects of the region, its freights and mixed consists are unusually various as to types of merchandise carried and its locomotives are among the most beautifully shopped and maintained anywhere in the South. A handsome green- and gold-painted Packard limousine with flanged wheels for the exclusive use of the roadmaster adds a panache of deluxe urbanity that might well be envied by more comprehensive railroad systems.
"The Tremont & Gulf's motive-power roster includes four enchanting ten-wheelers built between 1907 and 1915 by Baldwin and numbered 15, 20, 24, 25. Of somewhat later vintage is No. 30, a Baldwin Mikado. All are oil burners, and their silvered rod assemblies, red and gold trim on the cabs and general air of spit and polish set them in a class with such proudly maintained motive power as that of the little Colorado and Wyoming ...
"Every morning at one-hour intervals beginning at 6:30 the three trains roll out of Winnfield yards: one a solid freight which runs to West Monroe 40 miles away and return; a mixed freight and passenger on schedule between Winnfield and Tremont where it connects with the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley branch of the Illinois Central; and another freight with passenger accommodations in its spacious caboose on the 20-mile run to Waggoner, where it connects with both the Rock Island and the Louisiana & Arkansas."
The authors wrote more about the maintenance of the motive power: "The T. & G.'s motive power is among the most beautiful in the South," and of the road's motive power, "which is spotlessly maintained in the quintessence of short-line chic." Responsible for the well-kept equipment were Jesse L. Corley, Superintendent of Motive Power, and his shop crew. Mr. Corley served 40 years with Tremont & Gulf, from May 25, 1919 to July 31, 1959.
Lucius Beebe and C. M. Clegg, Jr. had this to say about Winnfield at the time of their visit in the middle 1940s:
"In Winnfield, where the hotel was overflowing with oil riggers, derrick-men and geologists attracted by a nearby offset property that had come through against the expectation of everyone concerned, we were lodged in overstuffed comfort at the home of the local magistrate whose lady, palm-leaf fan in hand, made pin money by taking in travellers whose credentials passed her inspection and standards of respectability. For two dollars we mounted to a bedroom whose Irish linen sheets, shaded bed lamps and Niagaras of hot water could have spelled luxury in New York or San Francisco."
On August 1, 1959 when the Tremont & Gulf Railway Company was sold to the Illinois Central Railroad Company, the transaction closed a chapter of Winn's history which began more than a half-century before with the beginning of the timber boom. At that time trains were operated between Winnfield and Monroe daily, and Sunday when necessary, and between Winnfield and Rochelle daily except Sunday; but the operation had ceased to be profitable.
Other railroads serving Winnfield in 1959 were Louisiana & Arkansas Railway Company, as part of the KCS-L&A System; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad; and Louisiana Midland Railway (formerly a branch of the L&A).
Beatrice Joyce Kean, a descendant of William T. Joyce, was the sole owner of the Tremont & Gulf when it was sold to the Illinois Central in 1959. She was also the sole owner of Tremont Lumber Company at the time she died in 1973, leaving no descendants. She left her holdings to the Joyce Foundation; and Tremont Lumber Company was sold to Crown Zellerbach Corporation in 1974.
Bibliography of credits:
Lucius Beebe and C. M. Clegg, Jr., Mixed Train Daily: A Book of Short-Line Railroads, 4th ed. (Berkeley, California: Howell-North, 1947).
The Comrade, Industrial Special Edition, July 24, 1908.
Forests & People, official Publication of the Louisiana Forestry Association, First Quarter 1970.
Winn Parish Enterprise, September 10, 1936.
Winn Parish Enterprise-News American, June 18, 1959.
Tremont Lumber Company 70th Anniversary Brochure, 1969.
Now some legal stuff. This is going to make you crazy, but remember tomorrow, it's but a night away. You may be approached regarding this. If so, tell them it'll cost 'em. Now the nitty gritty:
Interstate Commerce Commission.
Date:
Decided April 23, and May 14, 1912.
Source:
Abstracted from "Tap Line Case", published in Decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 23 I.C.C. 277, 23 I.C.C. 549, and in Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, 234 U.S. 1.
The main line of the Tremont & Gulf Railway extends from a connection with the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific at Tremont, La., southward for a distance of practically 50 miles to Winn-field, La., a town of 4,000 people, with two banks, a number of stores, and several mills and commercial enterprises, where it connects with the Rock Island, Louisiana & Arkansas, and Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company. It is laid with 60-pound steel rails, with a maximum grade of 1 per cent and a maximum curvature of 4°; its bridges are substantial; it is equipped with water tanks, coal chutes; and has telephone and telegraph lines for the dispatching of its trains. It has 6 agency stations, with 4 substantial depot buildings, costing from $200 to $7,000 each; and 30 section houses, 3 scales, a freight warehouse, etc. It also has 1 passenger and 3 freight locomotives; 3 combination coaches and passenger cars; 148 box cars; 50 flat cars, a pile driver, and cabooses; and its equipment has the necessary safety appliances. There are 18 or 20 men employed in its train crews and it has over 100 section or track men. It also has a full set of general officers, including a vice president, general superintendent, and general freight and passenger agent. It has a daily passenger train, consisting of a combination baggage, mail, and express car, and passenger coach, which is scheduled to make the 50 miles from Winnfield to Tremont in a little over two hours. It also operates a freight service as the traffic requires. It reports a passenger revenue of $17,000 for the year 1910. In addition to the town of Winnfield, which is its southern terminus, there are seven or eight small settlements along its line to and from which some traffic is hauled for the public arid at which are located several small independent mills. The country is not well developed agriculturally and there are only occasional shipments of cotton, peanuts, and cattle for the farmers. Out of a total freight movement of 191,374 tons during the fiscal year 1910, 167,270 tons were forest products, of which the major portion was supplied by the mills of the Tremont Lumber Company. It is stated that the shipments of that company average not less than 450 car-loads per month, while the independent mills ship about 95 carloads. For the tap line itself the claim is made that more than 72.6 per cent of its revenue is earned on lumber and merchandise handled for the account of the Tremont Lumber Company, while as much as 27.4 per cent is for other interests.
The Tremont & Gulf Railway also owns and operates a branch line, crossing its main line at a point about 5 miles north of Winn-field, connecting with the Rock Island at Pyburn and running for a distance of about 29 miles eastward to a connection with the Iron Mountain known as Rochelle. It also operates a branch leased from the Tremont Lumber Company and extending from a junction with the Rock Island at Jonesboro about 20 miles eastward to a connection with the tap line at Sykes. There are doubtless logging camps along these branch lines; there is a single small independent sawmill on each branch; but there are neither towns nor settlements; and apparently these branch lines are used primarily for the benefit of the Tremont Lumber Company.
The capital stock of the Tremont & Gulf Railway Company, of which $2,000,000 has been issued, is held by the Southern Investment Company, which also owns the stock of the Tremont Lumber Company, and other lumber industries elsewhere. We find, therefore, an identity of interest between the tap line and the Tremont Lumber Company, which has vast timber holdings along the, tap line, amounting at the date of the hearing to approximately 235,000 acres. The lumber company also, has three large mills at present in operation and two that have ceased running.
The principal mill is located a few hundred feet from the Iron Mountain right of way at Rochelle, on one of the branch lines heretofore mentioned, and about 40 per cent of the total manufactured output of the Tremont Lumber Company is shipped therefrom.
The balance of the output is about evenly divided between its mill at Eros, which is on the main road of the tap line, about 11 miles south of Tremont, and the mill at Jonesboro, from which there is a switching movement to the Rock Island of about 3,000 feet over the branch which the tap line operates under lease from the lumber company. The lumber from each of these mills is not routed over the line of the nearest trunk-line connection, but is distributed among the various trunk lines, the Rock Island getting about 35 per cent of the whole traffic, the Iron Mountain 20 per cent, the V., S. & P. 33-1/3 per cent, and the remainder moving over the Louisiana Railway & Navigation Company from Winnfield. It is said that the average haul over the Tremont & Gulf on the finished lumber is about 26 miles.
In addition to the incorporated line, including, as heretofore stated, 20 miles of branch lines leased from the Tremont Lumber Company, the latter company owns and operates upward of 50 miles of logging road and spurs reaching into its extensive timber tracts. They connect with the incorporated tap line at various points. The lumber company has trackage rights over the railroad, under and by virtue of which it moves logging trains from its various logging spurs in the timber to its several mills. In other words, the incorporated tap line does not haul the logs of the lumber company to its mills; and it made no charge against the lumber company for the trackage rights until after the hearing. It now gets a trackage toll of 35 cents per train-mile. It seems that the understanding had previously been that the incorporated tap line was.....?
The "Tap Line" description was removed. This will make you crazier. Almost an impossibility.
NO MORE A TAP LINE (Was this a relief? Or was it not?)
From Here
TBK TRAFFIC SERVICE XEWB BOKBAU, (Google sometimes garbles text intepretations, muc like I do.)
Colorado Building, Washington, D. O.
The Tremont & Gulf, June 13, had the word "tap" taken out of its description as a common carrier line. On that day, according to an announcement made a month later, the Commission took it out of the list of tap lines and now it is a common carrier without qualification. In so far as the tap line orders of May. 14, 1912, Oct. 30, 1912, and July 29, 1914, related to the Tremont & Gulf, they have been vacated and set aside as of June 13.
Affidavits filed with the Commission with regard to the Tremont & Gulf show that its relations with the Southern Investment Co. and the Tremont Lumber Co. have been entirely changed. The investment company has sold its interest in the railroad to James Stanley Joyce. The affidavits show that neither Joyce nor any other stockholder of the Tremont & Gulf has any beneficial interest, direct or indirect, in the Southern Investment nor in the Tremont Lumber Co., or in any other lumber or manufacturing company served by that railway, except that Joyce owns a small minority of the bonds of the lumber company and a small minority of the outstanding unsecured notes of the Investment company; that no stockholder of the railway company has any interest, direct or indireci, in any tracts of timber in the vicinity of that railroad or proposed extensions of it; and, on the other hand, that no stockholder of the investment company or lumber company, or of any other lumber company in that vicinity, owns any stock or has any interest in the Tremont & Gulf; and that no officer, director or stockholder of the railway company Is an officer, director or stockholder in the investment company or the lumber company; and that no officer, director or stockholder of the investment or lumber company is a director, officer or stockholder in the railroad company.
"In consideration whereof," says the order of the Commission, "the Commission finds that there has been a full and complete separation of the interests that control the said lumber company and the interests that control the said railway company." Therefore, the Commission sets aside and vacates its various tap line orders, so far as they pertained to the Tremont & Gulf, found to have been a tap line by the various reports of the Commission.
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Backing off the intense examination of the Tremont Lunber Co.'s holdings, to which we will return, I've decided to, yet again, give a little more explanation of the area. Refer to the maps above. These towns, except for Georgetown and Selma, sit above Rochelle, Tremont's big holding in the area. These explanatons are from the Federal Writer's Project, funded by us during the end of the Roosevelt social experiment. Basically, it seems, out of work writers were sent wandering the highways and byways explaining each wide place in the road. What was produced is priceless in historical currency.
CLICK THIS MAP It is from the write on Winnfield. The
Red line is the Rock Island, Winnfield to Packton, the purple
is the L&A from Winnfield to Packton. Neither play any
part in this discussion, though maybe a little does.
The purpose of this map is to avoid doing another one.
The towns on US 165 are underlined on the right side
of the map. Joyce and Winnfield are also underlined
because I wanted you to know where they were without
you spending all day looking. And click it, please.
I'll use the FWP 1945 descriptions to set the stage for the
historic and present day pictures I've collected and included.
OLLA:
Al makes me take pictures of the water towers. It's
insurance I'll have some way of documenting that I've
been there. One pine tree is pretty much the same as
the next and do not make good reference shots. Ray
Fagan lost an Iron Butt race submitting pine tree shots.
His excuse was, "we use them in Mississippi". The
judges considered his excuse for a while but eventually
ruled against him whereupon he succeded from the
club, vowing states rights and freedom from tyranny.
The OLLA water tower.
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Various street scenes.
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Aside from all the pine trees, you do get the idea that
you are in lumber country. And, yes, Dogwood Country, too.
These muti shots are huge. You must click them to get blown away.
These are all of Urania. First, I grouped the outside shots
at the mill. First row, no. 3 is a log train going into the mill.
It's the best one.
Second row:
The guy on the right is measuring the logs, I think.
They come up from a pond, usually, shown in the
middle shot. What they are doing on the left, I haven't
the foggiest. This article is not quite ready for prime time.
Again, click the shot to get blown away. These are pictures
inside the Urania mill.
These are of various rail operation out from Urania. (Click it)
You may be able to read the name of the RR if you click the pic.
OK, it's the Natchez, Urania, and Ruston Railway.
Below is one of their tugs.
These are my shots of Urania and the old mill.
Click them to enlarge. Yes, right above the carriage
is the name WM Edenborn, the same. Hardtner is credited
with using reforestration, but Edenborn had a hand in that
pot, too. Check it out. And, if you don't know who William
Edenborn was, please learn. You and I can not continue
this realationship unless you do.
To read about Hardtner, CLICK HERE.
The early mill.
A recent trip. The stack signaled the way. A pretty church
and the not so pretty remains.
I'm pretty sure these oil related shots were taken closer to Tullos
in the Little River back water.
'Below, the hotel at Rochelle, a picture of a couple of trains
I thought would fit in, an old bridge at Rochelle and the mill.
Click it.
The Rochelle dry cleaning service, the old bridge which we
see again below, and two areals of the mill.
I found my old pictures. This is old US 165, right at the
mill location. The mill was huge. The T&G came into the
mill near this location. I do believe the bridge is the
same structure.
The rails near the bridge, machines on the old mill site and
the scales.
Georgtown didn't have a mill. Rochelle was very close. I've
covered Georgetown, and frankly, been there, done that.
There was a little church with "Selma" as part of its name.
It's been seen, so no need to repost. I refuse to feel guilty
about it.
That's it for this page. It really isn't finished. But, what is?
All that intrigue will be on the next page when we get into
the muddy waters. The informatin copied on this page
was copied to preserve it. Websites disappear. Knowledge
should not, so let's not get petty. If you do, I'll send Al
or Cletus, depending on who Dave is that day.
Neither enjoy tea.
After the first page which consisted of my notes and discovered information on the string of little towns up US165 above Georgetown, La., I was flooded with inquires and additions. In fact, EL, himself, had been up there and sent shots of his visit.
EL arriving in Urania.
Settling in to his new digs.
Checking out the shopping opportunities
in Urania.
Stopping by the Hardtner Memorial
And, doing what he does, being the best
at standing dead center in the middle of the
tracks. You are still off a bit, EL. Notice
the grade.
"Grade", here, means "slope" or
"hill". Hills and slopes are fairly
foreign in my part of the country.
Anyway, for slopes and hills or
extreme grades, like over 1.867
or 2 or more, these little mules
were used.
If you have any shots of your visits
to Olla, Uranai, Tullos, Rochelle,
Georgetown, Selma or anywhere,
send them to Wilmata, she's our new
secretary. As you can see she makes
me post them at the top of each page.
In the last issue we looked at all of those little towns above and around Georgetown, some more than others. It is time to move on. To move you need a map, or maps. Maps are the most downloaded files on this site. Beware, as I must be, that some of the roads are not there any more or may be there but go only to Shagwa's pig farm of which he is very protective. Very.
This map shows the T&G in red. Others are in other colors.
This map shows the approximate reproduction of the
T&G in the real world. The best I can do is approximate
the real world, actually knowing it is more than I care to handle.
Below:
This is pretty interesting. The green line
is the red line coming down from Menefee
(La34 and US 84 n.w. of Winnfield). There
was a suspected logging track that went due
north. It is in red. Purely a wild swing.
The wye you see exiting the Rochelle yard
goes off to the east, how far, I'm not sure,
since I was stopped by private property
following the ROW. I can see now that there
may have been another opportunity to
intersect the ROW. Dang. Whoa, I did get that
far. Sorry for the explicative.
Rochelle was more or less down US 84. For now, we've done that. Next, we'll take a look at the little towns above Winnfield, up La.34. That was where I was going in the article, "Eros". I didn't make it that far because I hadn't done my homework and I was a little stupid. It's good to have stupid on your side since it can protect you. I would have been very late getting home or may not have made it home at all because I lose any concept of time and space since my head is full of other stuff, sorry Einstein you'll have to look elsewhere to store your data.
Scroll up to the plain unworldly map and look, starting at Menefee and then roll north to Tremont. I'd say that was the T&G main line. I'll briefly touch on a few towns as I'm getting worn out.
Eros by Wiki
I'll copy the good part.
The Tremont Lumber company founded Eros, in the early 20th century. Mrs. Pearl Collins suggested that the sawmill boomtown be named after the 433 Eros Asteroid (discovered in 1898). Eros served as a center point for a number of small surrounding communities, such as Hog Hair, Jumping Vernon, Indian Village, Salem Guyton, Flat Creek, Head Settlement, Vernon, Fuller Town, and Bug Tussle. Most children in these communities were sent to study at the Eros school, and citizens would normally receive their mail through rural mail coming from Eros. Box suppers would be held for various causes, making Eros a social center.
Naturally by 1920, the town became the largest in the Jackson Parish, with "a thousand residents, having a post office, three hotels, a newspaper, a company commissary, three doctors, a drug store, three churches, a jail, a bank, its own telephone exchange and Jackson Parish's first high school with six hundred pupils". A cyclone though devastated the town in 1920, destroying the sawmill. The sawmill was rebuilt, but yet again in 1926 a fire burned it to the ground. After that, the mill company felt that most of the timber had been harvested anyways, and moved their center of operation to Olla, Louisiana. Only a few hundred citizens stayed to maintain the town.
Eros is located at 32°23′33″N 92°25′22″W / 32.3925°N 92.42278°W / 32.3925; -92.42278 (32.392502, -92.422737)[1].
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1.0 square miles (2.6 km²), all of it land.
Chatham: An excellent hisory of Chatham can be found HERE.
Wiki's description isn't worth posting.
Informatin on all the other little towns can be best found on the previous page. Their claim to fame has deminished with the years and there just isn't much recent to say about them.
Here's a picture of the Tremont Lumber Co. Store in Tremont.
Shifting over to the west, the T&G went to a mill in Pyburn.
Pyburn sat just south of Dodson. I found this excellent little
newspaper there which features articles by local historians
and others. This one is great. It is from The Piny Woods
Journal's History Page
Dodson Log Scenes Recall Early Days.
By Murphy J. Barr
Journal Historian
Before 1900 only a few families lived in the area known as Reek's Deadening, later to become the present-day community of Dodson, Louisiana.
When the Arkansas Southern Railroad built a rail line from Arkansas south through the area to Winnfield, sawmills were established at intervals down the line. Dodson became a boom town when three sawmills were built, and the population grew to 2,500.
The Tremont Lumber Company, owned by the Joyce family of Chicago, built a sawmill at Dodson known as the Kelly. It was known as the largest sawmill in the United States at the time.
The area of North Central Louisiana was covered with the stately long leaf pines. They grew to great height, with few limbs except at the very top. There were no other timber stands anywhere like the long leaf pines. They made the best lumber to be found anywhere at the time. The Tremont Lumber Company sent in buyers to purchase timber from the owners, and they operated mainly in the parishes of Jackson, Winn, and Grant. Within a few years, the company owned a large part of the available land in Jackson and Winn parishes.
To transport the logs to the sawmill, Tremont Lumber Company established a railroad from a small mill in Lincoln parish, six miles east of Choudrant, where they owned a small sawmill. They named the place Tremont, and the railroad was given the name Tremont & Gulf. It ran south to Eros, Chatham, Sikes, Joyce, and ended at Winnfield.
From Dodson, they built tram roads which were not as well built as the main lines, running east from Dodson through the stands of timber, and connecting to the T&G at intervals along the track. The company set up logging camps out in the timber, where the employees lived while cutting and hauling the logs. The company moved the logs on tram cars over these lines.
The steam loader/skidder (photos below) traveled with the train of tram cars. Logs were cut and left on the ground to be dragged by long cables from the skidder, as far as 50 yards or so to be loaded onto the tram cars.
Logs not near enough to be pulled up by the skidder were loaded onto wagons pulled by mule and ox teams. In some cases, two teams of mules (four mules), or four yokes of oxen (eight animals) were hitched to each wagon, pulling loads of logs as far as several miles to stack the logs beside the tram tracks for loading by the steam loader. Logs were then taken to the mill for sawing into lumber.
Employees who lived in the log camps were the men who cut the logs. Two men working with a seven foot crosscut saw and axe and wedges made of wood, were called "flat heads." Other men who cleared roads for log wagons to travel with their loads were called "swampers."
Others kept account of logs hauled, and recorded the measured board feet in each log. The company operated a commissary store in the camp. The train engineer, conductors, and men who kept up and built the tram roads, and employees in the camps could ride the train out to the main tracks and travel to places away from the wooded areas.
There were no good roads in the area in that day. Railroads were the better way to travel and move goods. In the early days in Dodson, it was not uncommon for wagons and buggies to bog down in the middle of main street. Eventually, the sawmills cut out the timber and moved out. But they are back one hundred years later, and doing well.
The Family
The Tremont Lumber Company and the Tremont and Gulf Railway were controlled by these folks. They were an interesting group. Clotilde and her son, Stanley, stand out.
The following can be gritting if not interested. Be forewarned, there is a black sheep below. Let's just say Stanley did not do his ancestors proud. It gets bizarre.
Much of the information on this page came from THIS PAGE, unless noted. I interpreted the following the best I could.
William T. Joyce founds lumber business and others.
Leaves businesses to his son William Jr. in 1895.
William Jr. dies in 1909
The following paragraph is about his son William T. Joyce Jr. I put it here because it gives an idea of what his father had created for him to inherit William Sr. oversaw Jr's education and training.. At the time of William T's passing, Jr. was pretty much in control of the companies. From: The book of Chicagoans: a biographical dictionary of leading living men of ..., Click Here.
JOYCE, William Thomas, lumberman; b Salisbury, Conn., Jan. 2, 1860; s. David and Elizabeth F. (Thomas) Joyce; ed. Allen's Acad., Chicago; m. Clinton, la., Oct. 15, 1S84 Clotllde Gage: children: David G., James Stanley. Engaged In lumber business with his father at Clinton, la., 1880, and succeeded to h!«! father's interests in 1895; now president of the Joyce Lumber Co.. The W. T. Joyce Co Itasca Lumber Co., Pearl River Lumber Co Trinity County Lumber Co., Jovce-Pillshurv Lumber Co., Forest Product & Mfg. Co Park Hotel Co., Minneapolis & Ralney River R R Co., Merchants' Nat. Bank of Clinton, la,; 1st Nat. Bank of Lyons, la.; and Lyons Savings Bank. Operates 27 retail lumber yards in Iowa and 1 in Minnesota. Dir. in White River Lumber Co., Mississippi River Logging Co., St Paul Boom Co., Manistee & Grand Rapids Ry Co.; also Inter-State Trust and Banking Co. New Orleans. Republican. Mem. Masonic Lodge at Clinton, la.; Elk. Clubs: Union League, Chicago, Chicago Athletic, Washington Park. Chicago Yacht, Midlothian. Office: 234 LaSalle St Residence: 4614 Woodlawn Av.
The following is lengthy, but I couldn't leave it out. It was copied from HERE.
Biography of William Thomas Joyce (from Wolfe's History of Clinton County, Iowa, 1911)
Source: Wolfe, Patrick B. Wolfe's History of Clinton County, Iowa, pp. 1060-1063. Indianapolis, Ind: B.F. Bowen, 1911.
William Thomas Joyce
In the untimely death of William Thomas Joyce, of Chicago, whose demise occurred March 4, 1909, the industrial world lost one of its most progressive and successful workers. Trained in the lumber business, he rose to a position of importance and the many interests with which he was identified throughout the Northwest are monuments to his ability and prodigious energy. He will be sadly missed in the lumber trade, in which he was long a powerful and influential factor. Mr. Joyce was born at Salisbury, Connecticut, January 2, 1860, the son of David and Elizabeth F. (Thomas) Joyce. The family moved to Lyons, Iowa, now a part of Clinton, where the son was reared. He attended the Lyons schools, later taking a course at the Shuttuck school, at Faribault, Minnesota, finishing with an academic training in Chicago. The elder Joyce was on of the pioneer lumbermen of the Middle West. He carried on a large and lucrative business, and his efforts had much to do with the early development of the trade. Broad and liberal minded, he enjoyed a popularity so great that he was elected mayor of Lyons without a dissenting vote. He gave liberally to charity and was ready at all times to support any movement tending toward the betterment of the public good. The senior Mr. Joyce directed the education of his son with a view of having him engage in the lumber business, so when he left school in 1880, William T. began to work for his father. His training was thorough, as he studied every department of the trade. He clerked in the mill office, worked in the woods, mastered the details of the retail lumber yards, and was then sent on the road as a salesman. His father, no doubt, intended the son to succeed him in business, and when the elder Joyce passed away the young man was well equipped to assume complete control of his parent's vast interests. Before the death of his father, whose demise occurred December 4, 1894, William T. Joyce had practically assumed control of affairs. The various interests were located in different parts of the country, and the immense business built up by the father was perpetuated by the son. The subject not only kept the numerous enterprises intact, but extended and increased them. At the time of his death he was president of four railroads; the Manistee & Grand Rapids Railway Company, the Minneapolis & Rainy River Railway company, the Tremont & Gulf Railway Company and the Groveton, Lufkin & Northern Railway Company. Of his many lumber interests, Mr. Joyce was president of the following Southern companies; Southern Investment Company, Tremont Lumber Company, Winn Parish Lumber Company and the Louisiana Lumber Company, Ltd., all operating in Louisiana, and the Trinity County Lumber Company, operating in Texas. In the North, he was president of the Northern Investment Company, the Itasca Lumber Company, the Deer River Lumber Company, the William T. Joyce Company, the W.T. Joyce Company, which operates twenty-nine line yards; the Joyce-Watkins Company, doing a lumber, telephone and telegraph pole business, and the Joyce Lumber Company of Clinton, engaged in the wholesale business. He was also president of the Garland Hotel Company, which owns and operates the Park Hotel, at Hot Springs, Arkansas. In addition to these concerns, he was interested in the Victoria Lumber & Manufacturing Company, of Victoria, British Columbia; the Mississippi River Logging Company; the St. Paul Boom Company, and was a stockholder in the Corn Exchange National Bank and the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, of Chicago, and the Interstate Trust & Banking Company, of New Orleans, and in a number of other prominent institutions. Mr. Joyce controlled yellow pine mills, the combined yearly output of which was one hundred and fifty million feet. The timber back of the Trinity County Lumber Company's mill alone amounts to over five hundred million feet, and other tracts acquired from time to time give these concerns the assurance of long life in the trade. Mr. Joyce established general headquarters for his vast and rapidly increasing interests in Chicago in 1897, and since that time he was a conspicuous figure in lumber and financial affairs of the city. Mr. Joyce was married, in 1884, to Clotilde Gage, of a prominent Lyons family, who, with their two sons, David Gage and James Stanley, who survive him. The eldest son, David Gage Joyce, was associated in business with his father some time before the latter's death. He and his brother, James Stanley, a graduate of Yale University, are the successors to the Joyce interests. These young men, only twenty-five and twenty-four years of age respectively, have talent and ambition and the future holds forth much promise to them. Mr. Joyce was a member of the Chicago Union League, Chicago Athletic, Chicago Yacht and the Midlothian Country Clubs. He was also a thirty-second-degree Mason and a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Home life always appealed strongly to Mr. Joyce and his domestic relations were of the happiest. His private office was adorned with portraits of his family, of his homes, which included the old family residence at Chapinville, Connecticut, a roomy New England mansion, and the Joyce residence at Lyons, Iowa, as well as a handsome Chicago home situated at No. 4614 Woodlawn avenue, in the exclusive Kenwood district, where the surviving members of his family now reside. While vast interests required much of his attention, Mr. Joyce found time occasionally for relaxation and he sought recreation in foreign travel. Mr. Joyce inherited a large fortune and he could have lived in luxury, but he was a man of ambition and devoted the best efforts of his life to the development of the country's resources. The business interest left to him were in good hands and under his careful management their value was greatly increased. For his children he had a great and lasting affection and one of his fondest desires was to give them the best preparation for life. Their education was wisely planned and it is believed that these young men can successfully direct and develop the many interests that came to him at the death of their grandfather. Mr. Joyce was a man of great executive ability. He gathered about him lieutenants skilled in the management and direction of the Joyce interests. Mr. Joyce was a retiring disposition and while his donations to charity were large and frequent, he studiously avoided any publicity pertaining to them. To Cornell College he gave liberally, one of his gifts being a fifty-thousand-dollar endowment for the chair of economics and sociology. Loyalty was characteristic of the man. It was shown in his interest in Clintoin, where his father was so long in business, by his appreciation of the state of Iowa, where he spent so much of his life, and by his liberal support of the fraternal organizations to which he belonged. He expressed his regard for his parents by the erection of a mortuary chapel and an imposing obelisk to their memory. The ties of home and family were ever dear to him. A beautiful sentiment was manifested by keeping in his possession the home in the East, where he was born, and also the home in Clinton. This great, generous-hearted man did not live for himself alone, and while many of his kind deeds will have no public record, his larger benevolences cannot be concealed.
1909, Mrs. Clothilde Gage Joyce takes over business until her death, July 10 1940.
Clotilde/Clotilda GAGE
Birth: Mar 1860, Iowa USA
Death: 10 Jul 1940, Chicago, Cook Co, Illinois USA
Burial: 13 Jul 1940, Clinton, Clinton Co, Iowa USA
I'll get the obits out of the way so that you can meet these people, a little late, but late is better than never. Hum, several of the women mentioned down the page might dispute that.
Clotlide is the Iron Maiden of the family.
OBIT THE CLINTON HERALD THURSDAY JULY 11, 1940 Mrs. Clothilde G. Joyce, native of Clinton and for many years a prominent resident of this city, died at 1 PM Wednesday in Chicago where she had made her home most of the time in recent years. Funeral Services will be held at 3 PM Saturday at the Joyce family home, 1818 North Third Street, where the body will lie in repose after noon Saturday. The Rev. F.G. Williams, pastor of Grace Episcopal Church, will officiate. Burial will be in Oakland Cemetery. Mrs. Joyce was the wife of the late W.T. Joyce, prominent Clinton Lumberman, whom she married in 1884 and the mother of James Stanley Joyce, Chicago, and the late David Gage Joyce. She also was the sister of Mrs. R.C.A. Flournoy and grandmother of Beatrice Clothilde Joyce, daughter of James Stanley Joyce. Mrs. Joyce was the daughter of James P. and Helen Julia Buck Gage, who moved to the old town of Lyons from Jackson County in 1858 after having moved to the United States from Canada in 1854. Her father was one of the founders and first president of the First National Bank of Lyons and in 1873 established what was then known as the Farmers and Merchants National Bank.
Son, David Gage Joyce 52, dies 1937.
Surviving are the widow, Beatrice R. and a daughter, Beatrice C.
Remaining brother, James Stanley inherited lumber business from his mother, Mrs. Clothilde Gage Joyce. Mrs. Joyce died here on July 10 1940. James Stanley inherits 8 million in assets from her.
The Sheet on David Gage Joyce, deceased, 1937.
Spouse: Roberta A. Mc ACUFF
Marr: Aug 1912, Detroit, Wayne Co, Michigan USA
Other spouses: Beatrice RUDOLPH
6. James Stanley JOYCE
Birth: Dec 1886, Iowa USA
Death: 4 Jan 1944, Hot Springs, Garland Co, Arkansas USA
Burial: 7 Jan 1944, Clinton, Clinton Co, Iowa USA
Surviving are the widow,
Beatrice R. and a daughter, Beatrice C. (1923-1972)
Now to t he other brother, James Stanley Joyce:
This gets fun:
Mrs. Clothilde Gage Joyce, William T. Joyce's (1909) widow. Mrs. Joyce died on July 10 1940. James Stanley inherits 8 million from her.
He marries Peggy Hopkins Joyce in 1920, a starlet.
Divorces Peggy Hopkins Joyed in 1921. She sues for divorce charging cruelty.
She was allowed $40,000 with $1,350 a month alimony.
In 1926 James S. Joyce married Mrs. R. N. Vail
Three years later on Aug 9 1929 she also sued for divorce charging cruelty.
Mr. Joyce introduced counter evidence to oppose the suit.
Mrs. Joyce now received $500 a month temporary alimony.
James Stanley, 58, dies January 5, 1944
His mother dies in 1940, he dies in 1944. He inherited 8 million in assets and leaves 5 million. What happened to the 3 bills Stanley?
Partial Obit:
Joyce, Chicago lumberman and president of the Tremont and Gulf Railroad Company of Chicago, was the former husband of Peggy Hopkins Joyce, from whom he was divorced in 1921, according to Cushman B. Bissell, attorney for Joyce. Bissell said that Joyce's widow, the former Mrs. Nellie Vail of New York, whom he married in 1926, will receive $250,000 under an agreement, relinquishing all further claims to the estate. Her divorce against Joyce has been pending in Chicago since 1929, the attorney revealed. The remainder of the estate, Bissell said, estimated at $5,000,000, will go to the Joyce 's niece, Mrs. Beatrice Clothilde Joyce Richardson, of Coronado Beach, Calif. (his brother, David Gage Joyce's daughter)
Another Partial Obit:
Mr. Joyce's death terminates his court battle with his second wife Mrs. Nelle M. Joyce, which had become the longest drawn out suit in Circuit court. Both Mr. Joyce and his wife gained repeated delays in the suit, which was filed Aug. 8, 1929, both apparently content with the temporary alimony of $500 monthly that Mrs. Joyce began receiving in 1930. Currently Mrs. Joyce is in Florida. Bissell said a will leaves Mr. Joyce's 5 million dollar estate to Mrs. Beatrice Joyce Richardson, daughter of his brother, David, who died in 1937. Under a pre-nuptial agreement with Mrs. Joyce, his widow has waived all rights to the estate, but will receive $250,000 within one year after her husband's death, Bissell added. James had inherited the lumber company from his mother.
It gets thicker:
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE January 18, 1944
The will of James Stanley Joyce, millionaire lumberman , was filed in Probate court yesterday, disclosing an estate of $4,010,000. Joyce, third husband of the glamorous Peggy Hopkins Joyce, and later third husband also of Mrs. Nelle Vail Joyce, died Jan. 3 at the age of 58. Neither woman is a beneficiary under Joyce's will. The entire estate will go to his young niece, Mrs. Beatrice Joyce Richardson, 233 East Walton Street. The second Mrs. Joyce - Nelle Vail - is mentioned at length in the testament. Since 1929 she and Joyce had been battling in Circuit court over a divorce suit which she filed. Joyce contested it on the ground that actually she never was his wife - because, he charged, she fraudulently obtained a Florida divorce from her second husband, Dr. Raymond Vail. Thus, Joyce contended, he and Mrs. Vail were not legally married. In his will Joyce continued the theme in the following language: "For the benefit of the Probate court, I make the solemn statement that Mrs. Nelle M. Vail, who claims to be legally married to me, either knowingly or otherwise secured a divorce from her second husband, Dr. Raymond Vail, in Miami, Fla., upon the representation in court that she was at that time a legal resident of Florida, which representation was untrue and false. "Consequently her divorce from Dr. Vail, which preceded the ceremony of marriage with me, was and is illegal and void. There now is pending in the Circuit court of Cook county litigation in which those facts will be fully established. I was greatly imposed upon, and injured as a result of the false representation, and fraudulent obtaining of said decree." At stake for the second Mrs. Joyce is $250,000 provided in a pre-nuptial agreement. If her marriage ultimately is upheld, she would receive that sum from Joyce's e state, according to the office of Atty. Cushman B. Bissell, which filed the will. Under the agreement she waived all other rights to his estate. Atty. John D. Black, representing Mrs. Joyce, attended the hearing and indicated there will be no contest by his client. The will, filed with Richard P. Fredo, assistant to Probate Judge John F. O'Connell, was the latest o f six wills drawn up by Joyce. The first was dated Aug. 6, 1912. All left his fortune jointly to his mother, Clothilde, and his brother, David. Both are dead. The nearest heir by la w is Mrs. Richardson, David Joyce's daughter. Joyce's fortune was derived from the family' s lumber business in Clinton, Iowa. His two marital ventures make him a news figure. His first wife, Peggy Hopkins Joyce, won a $40,000 settlement, plus $1,450 a month alimony, when they were divorced in 1921.
Next:
1. THE CHICAGO DAILY TRIBUNE THURSDAY DECEMBER 4, 1941
Documents filed yesterday in County Court disclosed for the first time that James Stanley Joyce - whose marital troubles, including a divorce from Peggy Hopkins Joyce, frequently took him into the courts - inherited an estate valued at more than 8 million dollars from his mother, Mrs. Clothilde Gage Joyce. Mrs. Joyce died here on July 10 1940. Until these documents were made public record yesterday, it had been reported that Mrs. Joyce left her son, an only heir, an estate of $500,000.
Hum?
This was the estimated value of her property as filed with Probate Clerk Frank Lymann shortly after her death. But the inventories and transcripts of evidence taken during preliminary hearings on Illinois inheritance tax negotiations showed that her fortune was far greater. The same documents also disclosed that Mrs. Joyce who was 78 years old at the time of her death was a businesswoman of exceptional ability. Under her careful administration over a period of 32 years and through three national depressions, the family holding approximately doubled in worth. When her husband, William T. Joyce (Jr), lumberman, died in Chicago on Mar 4 1909, he left her an estate of $4,500,000. Experts who valued the estate for Attorney General George F. Barrett, said it was almost 100 per cent liquid and most of it consists either of US treasury notes and bonds or cash in banks. The court files show that federal inheritance taxes amounted to $3,241,114. The taxable cash value of the estate after federal taxes and other allowable deductions amounts to $4,598.376.96 according to the documents filed yesterday. Barrett's assistants have placed the state taxes on this amount at $609,772.79. A full inventory shows that Mrs. Joyce held only three small parcels of real estate; the family home at 4614 Woodlawn Ave. and two plots of land near Clinton, Iowa. The rest of the holdings consist of securities of which the largest items include: $4,091.857 in treasury bonds and notes, $2,529,000 in stock and interest in the lumber company $220,000 in cash in banks, $150,000 in city and state bonds considered preferred paper. The record on the William T. Joyce estate that was closed in January 1913 listed assets consisting chiefly of 19,980 shares of capital stock in the Joyce Lumber Company. Efforts to communicate with James Stanley Joyce, now a resident of Midlothian failed yesterday. His attorney, Cushman B. Bissell of the firm Lord, Bissell & Kadyk, refused to discuss the disclosures. James Stanley Joyce was 22 years old at the time of his father’s death. He was No 3 in the series of millionaire husbands of Peggy Upton-Archer-Hopkins-Joyce, marrying the former theater beauty in 1920. A year later they were divorced, Peggy obtaining the decree on grounds of cruelty. In 1926 Joyce married Mrs. R. N. Vail of New and three years later on Aug 9 1929 she also sued for divorce charging cruelty. This case is still pending although there have been a few spicy interludes during which Joyce introduced counterevidence to oppose the suit. Mrs. Joyce now receives $500 a month temporary alimony.
It goes on:
THE NEW YORK TIMES November 4, 1944 p. 16 CHICAGO, Nov. 3 -
A claim for $500,000 by Mrs. Nell e M. Joyce against the $5,000,000 estate of her estranged husband, James Stanley Joyce, lumberman, was settled in Probate Court yesterday for $400,000. Mrs. Joyce had contended $500,00 0 was due her under a pre-nuptial agreement, existence of which prevented her from receiving the bulk of the estate. She filed a divorce suit and it still was pending when Joyce die d last Jan. 3 at the age of 58. Mr. Joyce, third husband of Peggy Hopkins Joyce, left the bulk of his estate to Mrs. Beatrice J. Richardson, his 21-year-old niece.
Added:
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE Saturday July 15, 1944 p. 15
Estate of the late James Stanley Joyce, Chicago lumber king who died Jan. 3, was revealed in an inventory filed in Probate court yesterday to have amounted to more than 5 million dollars, slightly more than half the amount which he inherited from his mother, Mrs. Clotilde Gage Joyce in December 1941. His entire estate goes to his young niece, Mrs. Beatrice Joyce Richardson, 233 E. Walton St., Chicago. The inventory listed 20,000 shares of stock and 7,900 bonds in the Tremont and Gulf railroad, of which he was president; 6,666 shares in the William Joyce company in Maine, which he owned; 16, 666 shares in the Spruce Creek Lumber company of Tennessee; 3,222 shares of United States Steel; an $865,000 live insurance policy, and a claim against the U.S. government for the war time seizure of his yacht, Whitecap II. Under terms of a pre-nuptial agreement, Joyce's second wife, Nelle, was to receive $250,000 within one year of her husband's death, but her attorney, John Black, has been granted permission by the court to enter objections and July 26 ha s been set for hearing. Joyce's first wife, the famous Peggy Hopkins Joyce, received a $40,0 00 cash settlement at the time of their divorce, as well as a $1,250 monthly income for life.
How could the plot thicken more?
Here's how:
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE Friday August 12, 1955 F. Clever Arnold Joyce, 21, air force enlisted man, filed a petition in Probate court yesterday claiming he is the son and sole legal heir of James Stanley Joyce, lumber and railroad executive, and this entitled to all of his 5 1/4 mill ion dollars estate. Joyce died Jan. 3, 1944, at age 58, and his estate was closed in 1947. Joyce's estranged wife, Mrs. Nelle Vail Joyce, received $400,000 and his niece, Mrs. Beatrice Joyce Richardson of Coronado Beach, Fla., received the remainder. Clever Joyce, stationed at Orlando, Fla., appeared with his mother, Mrs. Ann Brannon Joyce of Miami, Fla., executive director of the American Children's home there. Samuel Rosenberg, attorney for the plaintiff, said Mrs. Ann Joyce was married to Joyce July 2, 1933, in Jeffersonville, Ind., and that Clever was born of the marriage Sept. 27, 1934. She and Joyce separated three weeks after the marriage, when she was told he already had a wife at the time of the ceremony, the attorney said. Rosenberg said she did not present herself, as a claimant to the estate because of he r shame in her belief the marriage was not valid. She did not inform the elder Joyce of the birth of the child, Rosenberg said. Should Mrs. Ann Joyce's claim of the marriage be established, she would be wife No. 3 of James Joyce. His first wife was Peggy Hopkins Joyce, former actress, from whom he was divorced in 1921, and the second Mrs. Nelle Joyce, whom he married in 1926. They separated in 1929. Out of court, Rosenberg displayed photo static copies of a marriage license and birth certificate, which he said, would establish the claim. At the hearing Cushman Bissell, attorney for Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust company, which was executor of the estate, branded the claim "an absolute fraud" on the court and the bank. He asked a 90-day continuance. Charles Seidel, acting Probate court judge, directed the bank to answer the petition by Sept. 8, and set Sept. 15 as the date Probate Judge Robert J. Dunne would schedule a hearing.
The bank files suit.
The Illinois Supreme court has not ruled on validity of the law, which was enacted by the same legislature, which repealed the interlocutory divorce provisions of Illinois, divorce law, attorneys said. The law was intended to legitimatize children of marriages performed outside Illinois when the interlocutory Illinois divorce decree of one of the parents had not become final. Many such marriages subsequently were annulled. The bank's petition was filed in answer to a petition by Clever Arnold Joyce, 21, an air force enlisted man stationed at Orlando, Fla. Joyce's petition allege d he is the son and sole legal heir of James Stanley Joyce, lumber and railroad executive who died in 1944, and thus entitled to all of his 5 1/4 million dollar estate. Clever Joyce claimed his mother, Mrs. Ann Brannon Joyce, was married to James Joyce in 1933 and that he was born of that marriage. The bank was administrator of the estate, closed in 1947. Joyce' s estranged wife, Mrs. Nelle Vail Joyce, received $400,000 and the balance went to a niece, Mrs. Beatrice Joyce Richardson, of Coronado Beach, Fla. The bank contended the alleged marriage never was consummated and that, even if it were, Clever Joyce would not be entitled to inherit the estate because the 1923 law is invalid. The law firm of Cherkas, Rosenberg & Stone, representing Clever Joyce, filed a motion to strike the bank's answer on the ground that when the bank was discharged as executor in 1947 its obligations and duties in the estate ceased.
William T Sr. and William T Jr. along with Clotilde, must have been rolling in their graves. If Stanley had lived longer, this page would be longer.