wHo" C. E. De Camp

Eighty-one years young and still an active and alert executive, Clarence E. De Camp, vice-president of the Caspar Lumber Co., San Francisco, and Redwood Manufacturers Co., Pittsburg, Calif., pioneer California Redwood lumberman, is one of the best liked and most respected members of the great lumber industry of this country.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1859, he came to California in 1860.

A brief sketch like this can only give the high lights of a career that has covered 64 years and is still continuing.

He entered the lumber business as a very young man in 1876, when he went to work for his grandfather, J G. Jackson, who operated a Redwood sawmill at Caspar, Calif., which a few years later became known as the Caspar Lumber Co. His first job was keeping books in the store.

In April of that year he went to Los Angeles to keep books in J. G. Jackson's lumber yard, then at the corner of Alameda and 1st Streets. At that time Mr. De Camp recalls that there were only three lumber yards in Los Angeles, the other two being Griffith, Lynch & Co. on another cofner of Alameda and lst Streets, and Perry, Woodworth & Co. on Commercial Street, near Alameda. Jim Cuzner was manager of the J. G. Jackson yard. William Kerckhoff bought half i,nterest in the yard in t879 and the name of the firm became Jackson, Kerckhoff & Cuzner. The yard was moved in 1882 to Alameda and Macy Streets and was then known as the Kerckhoff-Cuznetr Mill & Lumber Co.

It is interesting to record that Mr. De Camp sold the lumber in 1876 for the first wood house constructed in P'asadena. The population of Los Angeles when he went there in 1876 was only a few thousand, of which many were Mexicans.

He returned to San Francisco in the fall of 1876, went to business college for a year and returned to work in the yard at Los ,A.ngeles where he remained until the fall of 1879. Ife went -from there to the mill at Caspar, where he worked in the store for a while. In the fall of 1880 he came to the San Francisco office, which was then at Pier 4 on Steuart Street and moved later to the Doe Building, site of the present Lumbermen's Building, 119 Market Street.

He returned to Caspar in 1881 and soon after his arrival there began the remodeling of the mill. One of the first jobs he tackled was that of reducing the saw kerf of nearly half an inch to a quarter-inch. He worked this problem out with the assistance of a clever saw filer. When he took over the running of the mill there was a loss of time of a day and a half a week'due to leaky boilers and run-down equipment,. but by the early spring of 1882 he had the mill running full time with only an occasional interruption.

The young pioneer mill superintendent more th'an doubled the mill's log supply in a short time by increasing the ox teams from three and four yoke to six and substituting unbroken bulls in five out of six yoke, leaving only a yoke of high priced oxen as leaders in each team. Later he surveyed and built a logging railroad five miles long into the woods. His installation of electric lights in 1883 was another factor in increasing production of lumber when 2000 candle-power arc lights replaced prirnitive lamps that burned China-nut oil.

Mr. De Camp returned to Los Angeles in 1887 and for a period of 21 years was sales agent fbr Caspar Lumber Co. and had other interests there. In 190E he came back to the San Francisco office of the Caspar Lumber Co., was appointed secretary of the company and was sales manager until 1914. In that year the company bought the Redwood Manufacturers Co. at Pittsburg and the sales department was transferred to that office.

He has been vice-president of Caspar Lumber Co. since 19ll and holds the same office with Redwood Manufacturers Co. His duties in these positions have made him a busy man for many years past, but he takes time out occasionally to tell some of the younger fellows of the problems that a mill manager had in the Re'dwood industry in the 8O's.

Mr. De Camp has been a director of the Redwood Export Co. for more than a quarter of a century. He is a member of the San Francisco lJnion League Club.

It is fitting to reproduce here a copy of a testimonial given to Mr. De Camp in January, 1937 by his fellow members of the Redwood industry and signed by each of them. This reads as follows:

Clarence Eastman De Camp

For the years of your service to the industry, for your generous gifts of time and energy, we of the second and third generations of the Redwood family afiectionately -salute you. Our heritage is enriched by your achievements. 'We are grateful for your sound counsel and the inspiration of your presence.