The voluminous Oconto letter books, averaging about nine hundred letters to a volume, describe thirty-five years of lumbering activity in northern Wisconsin. As the following tabulation shows, the letter books deal in greatest detail with the decade of the nineties:
- 1860's
- 1 volume
- 1870's
- 5 volumes
- 1880's
- 15 volumes
- 1890's
- 32 volumes
- 1900's
- 2 volumes
Despite this concentration on the nineties (which was probably due to expanded operations), the letter books provide an almost complete day-to-day account of activities in the earlier decades as well.
Until 1889, the bulk of the Oconto letters were written by subordinates in the company. Until Holt and Balcom was dissolved T. B. Goodrich, probably the superintendent, wrote most of the letters. T. H. Phelps, probably the bookkeeper, wrote a few letters, as did Augustus Cole, who was field manager. Not until W. A. Holt took over active management of Oconto affairs about 1889 were a sizeable portion of the letters written by a high-ranking official of the company. Even then lesser figures like T. H. Phelps, W. H. Young (superintendent), and W. E. Congdon (manager) wrote a tremendous number of routine letters.
Until 1889, the most extensive single bloc of Oconto correspondence was addressed to the Chicago office; after 1889 letters bound for the parent office were put up in separate volumes. The remaining correspondence was addressed to thousands of individuals, railroads, lumber companies, law firms, supply houses and similar business establishments; no sample listing of names could convey any accurate impression of the extent of the company's contacts. Most of the businesses were located in the mid-West, with the bulk of the letters going to Wisconsin, Illinois, and neighboring states. It appears that eastern contacts in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts did not loom large until the 1890s.
The subject matter in the Oconto letter books covers a wide range of topics, most of which had to do with the routine affairs of lumbering at Oconto. The following list is suggestive of the subjects covered:
- Descriptions of lumber cut and shipped
- Requisitions for supplies for the Oconto mill, store, camp
- A record of daily orders (particularly after 1889)
- Financial transactions with the parent house in Chicago
- Relations with the railroads-Chicago and Northwestern
- Shipping lumber by lake boat from Oconto to Chicago
- Bills paid, detailed records of expenditures
- Occasional lists of wages paid to labor
- Law suits, damage claims, disputes with other companies
- Taxes and land valuations
- The relation of weather to logging
- Dealings with fire insurance companies
- Activities in Wisconsin Lumber Dealers' Association
- Buying new woodlands, selling cut-over lands
- Forest fires
- Indications of prices and quality of lumber
- Various problems dealing with cutting, driving, finishing
- Relations with Lumberman's Credit Association
- Accident reports
It seems safe to say that the information contained in the Oconto letter books describes in detail what was done; but it rarely indicates why.
Until the 1890s the letters were virtually all written in longhand, and thereafter the majority were still not typed. Probably one-tenth of these letters are illegible due to fading, water-soaking, tearing and similar damage. Many of the volumes are completely unindexed; and those that are indexed are inadequate, marred by many omissions.
Two central facts to be kept in mind in evaluating the Oconto letter books: 1. the Oconto office was essentially a branch office, at least until the 1890s 2. except for William A. Holt the Oconto letters were written by underlings who had no hand in policy-formation. As a result, the letters are most valuable for details on the cutting, driving, and finishing of lumber; on the supplying and operating of the company store and the camps; on the receiving and filling of orders; and on daily financial transactions with the Chicago house.
On other important matters-company objectives, policy, resources, political actions, profits and business feuds-the letters shed little, or indirect light. From the point of view of writing a business history it seems safe to say that not more than twenty per cent of the Oconto letter are useful; and this twenty per cent is buried beneath a mass of material of doubtful value.
