Dublin Core
Title
[Scotch-Irish Derrick Man]
Subject
- Travel
- Emigration and Immigration
- Occupations
- Folklore
- Narratives
- United States -- Vermont
- Emigration and Immigration
- Occupations
- Folklore
- Narratives
- United States -- Vermont
Description
Conditions and morale while building the railroads as told by a 60 year old Scotch-Irish man.
Creator
[no text]
Source
U.S. Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers' Project
Publisher
Library of Congress,
Date
1900
Contributor
Richmond, Roaldus (Interviewer)
Rights
Fair Use
Relation
[no text]
Format
[no text]
Language
English
Type
Narrative
Identifier
[no text]
Coverage
[no text]
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
SCOTCH-IRISH DERRICKMAN
The sky beyond sheer granite walls and jagged mountains of grout was painted in lurid colors by the sinking sun. A twilight stillness was on the wooded heights. A hundred feet below lay the abandoned Barclay Quarry, now partly filled with dark water. Derrick masts and booms stood interlaced with guywires. Half-buried in the ground were coils of cable and giant hooks of rusted iron. A long boiler rested in the brush. Birds called from the outer slopes, and from the watery [chasm?] below echoed the deep chunk of a bullfrog. There was a lonely grandeur, a grim beauty in the scene. There was something fearsome and awesome about it, as you remembered the strong man who had labored and died there, cutting this great gorge through a mountain of solid granite.
“I worked this quarry twenty-one years,” Jack Gillis said, looking down at the abandoned quarry. He was Scotch-Irish, long of limb and wide of shoulder, over sixty years old now. His thin face was red and graven with hard lines, his narrow blue eyes crinkled when he smiled, his lean jaws had an arrogant thrust.
“I was head-derrickman. See that shack an the other side- I operated from there awhile. I worked all through here. It was one of the biggest quarries on the Hill and there's still a lot of good stone left in it. All kinds of good stone. Back there by the first waterhole, [that's?] where they got what they called Sunnyside Blue, the only blue granite on the Hill. It was a beautiful blue, and the hardest granite of all. It wouldn't take a polish,
The sky beyond sheer granite walls and jagged mountains of grout was painted in lurid colors by the sinking sun. A twilight stillness was on the wooded heights. A hundred feet below lay the abandoned Barclay Quarry, now partly filled with dark water. Derrick masts and booms stood interlaced with guywires. Half-buried in the ground were coils of cable and giant hooks of rusted iron. A long boiler rested in the brush. Birds called from the outer slopes, and from the watery [chasm?] below echoed the deep chunk of a bullfrog. There was a lonely grandeur, a grim beauty in the scene. There was something fearsome and awesome about it, as you remembered the strong man who had labored and died there, cutting this great gorge through a mountain of solid granite.
“I worked this quarry twenty-one years,” Jack Gillis said, looking down at the abandoned quarry. He was Scotch-Irish, long of limb and wide of shoulder, over sixty years old now. His thin face was red and graven with hard lines, his narrow blue eyes crinkled when he smiled, his lean jaws had an arrogant thrust.
“I was head-derrickman. See that shack an the other side- I operated from there awhile. I worked all through here. It was one of the biggest quarries on the Hill and there's still a lot of good stone left in it. All kinds of good stone. Back there by the first waterhole, [that's?] where they got what they called Sunnyside Blue, the only blue granite on the Hill. It was a beautiful blue, and the hardest granite of all. It wouldn't take a polish,
Original Format
Manuscripts/Mixed Material