Born: July 27, 1868, son of James Wilson Dyer and Mary E. Perrigo
Died: February 6, 1932
Married: Julia A. Sasaeville or Sausville (1870 - 1950)
Children: Benjamin Dyer born 1890 in Vermontville
Chiefly known for:
In April 1902 Frank moved into the Perrigo house in Vermontville
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Tuesday, March 27, 1956
THIS 'N' THAT by MRS. ALBERT TYLER
Back in the winter of 1903-'04 the late Al Baker of Plattsburgh had a lumberlng business on, or near, the western slope ot Haystack Mountain, which is a little south and east from the little hamlet of Onchiota. He had several men from this area working for him; and among them were the late George B. Tyler and Frank Dyer, both of Vermontville. George was 46 years old at the time and Frank was somewhere near the same age.
It seems that George and Frank were sawing down the trees, with a two-man cross-cut saw, of course while a french Canadian was going around notching the trees ready for them to saw. They were cutting spruce and balsam trees into 12-foot logs, which were skidded and drawn out to a road where they were cut into four-foot lenghts for pulp. Of course the trees were good-sized '"first growth" trees; none of the smaller "second-growth" stuff which is being cut in most places now.
Work went on steadily and speedily for some time. One day along in the afternoon a tree which the two men sawed down fell apart way down and lodged in a large hard-wood tree. They left it there, hoping it would dislodge itself by it's own weight, and they went on cutting other trees nearby. Soon they had a second tree '"hung up" in the same hard wood tree. They said the trees looked like a huge wigwam. Of course, they had to get the trees down, but George thought if they left them overnight they might work down by their own weight, especially if a wind came up, but Frank thought they had better not leave them like that. The only solution of the problem seemed to be to cut the hard wood tree and so bring them all down, and this they decided to do. They knew it was a very dangerous proceeding, but they looked the possibilities over well, and though they would be able to get out of the reach of the trees in time; and so they sawed the hard wood tree. Exactly what happened no one to-day seems to know —whether the tree twisted as they fell, or broke before they had it entirely cut, or what. Anyhow, although they had mapped out what looked like a safe line of retreat, they weren't able to get away far enough, quick enough. A large branch from one of the trees hit George on the head, shoulders and arm. leaving him uncouscious on the snow-coveder ground; while one of the trees struck Frank, knocking him down and pinning him under it. They were all alone in that portion of the woods except for their notcher who had worked on ahead, and away from them. After an hour or so had passed he began to wonder what had become of the two sawyers, and went back to see if they were in trouble; and so he found them. George was still, unconscious and Frank wasn't much better off. The Canadian couldn't speak much of any English, but he ran to camp, yelling so excitedly that the other men went with him to see what the trouble was.
George was beginning to "come around", but his mind was very much confused for many hours. Both men were badly chilled, so they built a fire and laid George beside it, while they worked to free Frank from the tree. Whether they dug out under him, or cut the tree enough to get it off him I don't know, but when they got him free they found he had a badly broken upper leg. They land him carefully by the fire to warm while someone went for the team and sleds. And so they took them to a home in Onchiota. From there they called a doctor, supposedly "old Dr. Noble of Bloomingdale". The men were later taken to their homes in Vermontville where they were cared for by their wives and families.
Frank's leg healed alright but was shorter than the other, and it left him with a bad limp. George's arm and shoulder bothered him for many years; up to the time of the accident he had alwavs been a "sort of a skinny feller" but as he recovered from the injuries received that day he began to put on weight, and 15 or 30 years later weighed as much as 325 pounds, and although he lost quite a bit of that he was a "heavy man" for the rest of his life.
