of the furnace also choked — the harder they blow 

 the more he choke. He then said he would show 

 me how. He pounded up a piece of the ore and 

 separated the specular iron ore from the zinc and 

 put some of the zinc on a plate of iron, laid it on the 

 fire and told me to see it smoke. He held a cold 

 iron shovel in the smoke and scraped together the 

 white deposit that was soon on it and said, "that is 

 what chill and choke him up." 



Up to the advent of Henri Mogeme all the copper 

 pipes were jointed and the coupling screws attached 

 by soft solder by sweating as it was called: first 

 turning well, slipping one within the other then 

 over an open charcoal fire soaking in soft solder and 

 piling over the joints a mass of solder wiped into 

 shape like the plumber's lead pipe joints. Henri's 

 brazed joints got rid of these unsightly ones. 



There were no regular foremen at the shops. I 

 think Daniel Cullom was the name of the leading 

 wood worker in making the engine bodies with 

 Samuel Meredith and George Rawlings working 

 with him. I think I have before said that there 

 were four blacksmith fires and work was given out 

 through the man at what was called the first fire 

 or smith and the same plan was carried out in the 

 finishing and erecting. If they could be considered 

 foremen they were also workers. 



Among all the hands employed I think I can safely 

 say that not a single one had become on friendly 

 terms with Henri. When speaking of him it was 

 always as that mean, stingy, dirty Dutchman. As to 

 dirty and unkempt they were not wrong when about 

 his work. Cullom once said to me that he had tried 

 to make up to him and had offered to treat him at 

 the bar, but he said he never took anything. Cullom 

 went on to say that he knew it was only stingy mean- 

 ness — he was afraid he would be obliged to return it. 



I said I did not think a man who had the two best 

 rooms at the tavern, who regularly paid his board 

 and gave the boy (as his companion was always 

 spoken of) the best private teachers and had him 

 always look like a gentleman could be called mean 

 and niggard, that for my part I could not see how he 

 did it on his wages of Sg.oo per week. 



That is just it, said Cullom, there is something 

 wrong and we are bound to find it out. We know 

 he is mean and stingy, he chews the vilest tobacco, 

 dries the quids and smokes them in his nasty black 

 pipe, uses the ashes for snuff and picks his nose to 

 grease his shoes and a lot more of the same kind of 

 stuff. I told father of this and he said he feared that 



trouble was coming, he had heard of a good deal of 

 grumbling among the hands and he thought that 

 Henri's evident partiality to me and the fact that I 

 was so much in his little shop might have something 

 to do with it. He did not know what the men 

 suspected but he did know that they were shadowing 

 Henri's every movement. Every Saturday the men 

 were paid off, their wages being put up in envelopes 

 and they had learned that sometimes Mogeme did not 

 call for his for several weeks. 



There were no drawings to scale in use at that time 

 but full size drawings on boards were in common use. 

 Father was very ready with the pencil and was one 

 of the best offhand sketchers I ever knew and he 

 made good use of me in making the full size drawings. 

 In the smith shops were two great boards or boards 

 jointed together. On one of them was half of the set 

 of levers drawn to full size for the large engines and 

 on the other were the levers for the village engines 

 which the blacksmiths worked to for the curves. In 

 making these drawings part of the time I was obliged 

 to lie on my belly and use my arm as radii for the 

 curves with father standing by directing the changes 

 of the trial marks I made. 



No rolled iron was used; all the iron came from a 

 charcoal forge on the Brandywine near Coatesville, 

 I cannot recall the name. Wooden patterns were sent. 

 In order that the main lever bars might be drawn to 

 the proper taper and the centre piece or drop from 

 the fulcrum to give the motion to the horizontal pump 

 chamber, patterns were made. 



The two principal welds were to connect the arms 

 to the centre drop. They were scarf or top welds 

 and for the large levers when finished would be about 

 5 or 6 inches X i inch. There was a great deal of 

 hammer and flattening work done on these after 

 they came from the forge. A lever on a large engine 

 (I think it was the Philadelphia Hose Co.) gave way 

 at one of these welds. Externally it looked to be 

 perfect but there was a considerable cavity internally 

 showing that in welding cinder had been enclosed. 

 Father had given directions to the head smith to be 

 very particular in shaping the bevels to be welded 

 so as to have them so shaped that the first blows 

 should be effective on the centre and drive the cinder 

 out if there should be any. 



An engine had been shipped to Richmond. Va. 

 It went on the deck of a schooner, I think on a line 

 called Hands Line for Norfolk and Richmond, and 

 George Rawlings went along as caretaker. Father 

 followed by the Steamboat and Stage routes via 



49 



