DCHP-1 Online

peavey † peevie, peevy [origin uncertain]

• n. a strong pole or lever, 5 to 7 feet long, the end of which is furnished with a point of iron or steel and a hinged semicircular hook, used by loggers for directing logs in a drive, during booming operations, etc. [See picture at peavey]

  See also: drive ((n.)) (def. 1)  

  • This tool was almost certainly devised in the woods of New Brunswick and Maine, where the first large-scale lumbering operations were carried out on this continent. The claim has been advanced, but not proved, that aJ. B. Peavey of Bangor, Maine, was the inventor.

  • 1911  Peevy and cant-hook fell upon it, sharp saws. . . .
  • 1938  Indomitable, if cursing, under blazing sun and smoke-blackened night, they worked with shovel, axe, peevie and hose.
  • 1963  In New Brunswick . . . developed the river drive of the squared timber and the masts down the river, the lumber camp, the lumberjack, the peavey, the term "Main John" for the woods boss.
  • 1964  Using bulldozers, the Irving company can put 28 to 30 million feet of logs into the river in one area in three or four days where it used to take 200 to 300 men pushing and straining with peaveys two to three weeks to do the same job.