22 THE DELAMATER IRON WORKS— 



would be an almost endless repetition of what has been enumerated and a summary 

 of all the various kinds of mechanisms which have contributed to the advance in 

 progress of the country at large. 



Let me, however, in the words of Mr. Thos. J. Rider, give an account of some of 

 the occurrences which happened in the early eighties after I left there just to furnish 

 an insight into the character of the man Cornelius H. DeLamater himself, and to in- 

 dicate what the men thought of him and would do for him. 



"The year 1888 was an eventful one, the winter was very severe and I had 

 plenty of trouble with the janitors letting their pumping engines freeze and burst. 

 Then when we all felt we were through with it the blizzard came and snowed us all 

 up. Several of us were in Mr. DeLamater's office when Charley Capes, the pay- 

 master, came in to ask what he would do about paying off. He could not get to the 

 bank and didn't think anyone would be in if he could get there. Mr. DeLamater 

 spoke up and said he had been in business nearly fifty years and in all that time 

 he had never missed paying his men on Monday but once before, during the Civil 

 War, when the clerk who was sent for the money ran away with it and it was too 

 late before they found out what had happened to do anything about it that day. 

 He told us how the fellow was caught soon afterwards and most of the money re- 

 covered, and how he promised that if he would enlist in the army he would be al- 

 lowed to go. Mr. DeLamater told Charley to pay anyone who came to the window 

 that night if it took every cent in the place, not only in the safe, but all that we in 

 the office had in our clothes and he would reimburse us, but no one came in, for the 

 rrlen who were there in the morning had all gone home long before. 



"In April a very disastrous fire happened about 9 o'clock in the evening. We 

 lost nearly all of our patterns and the Ericsson Pumpers that we had in stock for the 

 summer business ; in fact the pattern shop and machine shop on the north side of 13th 

 Street, together with the pattern loft and storage room, were all destroyed. As 

 usually happens, the city had been doing something to the water pipes in the street 

 and the water was shut off. Maybe we did not have to hustle that summer ! Well, 

 we filled all our orders, but I did not get a full night's sleep till the first of Novem- 

 ber after our rush was over. We were building at the time of the fire a lot of steam 

 stokers which were on the ground floor of the damaged shop, and the most excited 

 man around was the man for whom they were being made, who had quite a lot 

 to say and was wild for a while. 



"However, they were hauled out as soon as possible and found to be in fairly 

 good condition and were finished and shipped without much loss of time. 



"The Knights of Labor were strong in those days and gave us some trouble. 

 We had several strikes and during one of them we were building some large ice 

 machines for a brewery on Staten Island. It was a time contract and was well 

 along and the time was getting short. 



"One morning one of the foreman spoke to me and said that they had been 

 talking it over among themselves and that there were fourteen men, foremen and 



