James Domville “Buzzsaw Jimmy” Richards (1873 - 1967)
Jimmy Richards was twenty-five when he started out for the Klondike gold rush in 1898. He had a diploma in business administration from the New Brunswick Business College. He boarded a Colorado Sleeper to Vancouver that derailed, killing two fellow passengers. He took a job in Vancouver on the construction of the steamer The Honest Citizen, and then took another job on a steamer heading for Alaska. She was a small ship being pulled by a larger steamer. Richard’s ship started to fall apart, and the first mate had to threaten the steamer ahead with a rifle before he would slow down.1)
Jimmy Richards boarded the sternwheeler James Domville at St. Michaels. This steamer was named for his godfather, Lt. Col. James Domville, Member of Parliament for King's County, New Brunswick and a manager with the Yukon Steamboat and Mining Company. The steamer James Domville was bringing a whiskey barge to Dawson but could not make headway on a pile of green cottonwood. Captain Ferris ordered barrels of fat pork be pulled from the hold and used for fuel. When Richards reached Dawson, he saw all the rich claims were staked so he stayed with the James Domville to her winter quarters in Whitehorse.2)
Arriving in Whitehorse on 5 October 1898, Captain Ferris offered Richards $5 a cord to chop wood for the boilers, but he and a deck hand went to Atlin instead. It took five weeks to get there and stake some claims, but they decided to return to work on the boats. In the first trip of the new season, the James Domville was headed back down to Dawson but was wrecked in the Thirty Mile River, just twenty-four hours into the trip. The crew was paid off and Richards started doing odd jobs along the Yukon River. He cut wood, prospected, worked on boilers and machinery, ran messages and did many things to make money.3)
In 1910, Jimmy secured a new sawmill and opened for business in a vacant lot behind Lowe’s blacksmith shop.4) Jimmy was well known for his unique buzzsaw. He took an old tractor and an engine from a Model T Ford and fused them together to create a wood cutting machine. The blade would rip into a log with a whine that could be heard all over town. He could cut eight to ten cords of wood when the next best machine could only manage three. He charged $1.50 a cord if the logs were ready. The going rate was $7 to $8 supplied, cut and delivered. The Whitehorse Inn hired him regularly because he was fast and because he had a daily tab at the City Cafe. Lloyd Ryder's father was also in the wood cutting business and he would hire Richards when he got behind.5)
Richards was quiet man but good with kids. He lived in a garage on Second Ave between Elliot and Main streets and would park the machine there beneath his hammock. The hammock was strung in the rafters and he climbed up to it on the machine. A string was tied to the damper of his Yukon Stove so he could control it from his loft. At least once a year he was the last person to drive across the river in the spring. He made little inventions for no real purpose and wrote poems to advertise them in the Whitehorse Star. He drove the buzz saw from one job to another and that attracted tourists.6)
On 30 May 1921, Richards saved Whitehorse from burning down when he took over the city boilers when the Edgewater was burning. He found an old wash tub and began throwing straight coal oil to the burners every five minutes. The pumps kept four hoses going aimed at all sides of the hotel.7) In December 1921, Jimmy’s leg just above the ankle was crushed very badly when he was taking his wood saw outfit to his garage. He was jolted from his seat and slipped into the gears.8) Dr. Culbertson and two other local physicians decided his wound was too serious for local treatment and Jimmy was sent to a Vancouver hospital with hopes that his foot could be saved from amputation.9) [Need to find and add the story about the saw cutting off Jimmy's wooden leg.]
In December 1925, Jimmy reported that he sawed ten cords of wood in one hour, the best time he had made to date with his machine.10)
In 1950 Buzzsaw and his machine moved to some property owned by George Ryder. The Machine was towed away to the dump and Buzzsaw died at the Grandview Nursing Home in Vancouver.11)