We could not obtain any proper hard pine 8 × 8, but we did find some creosote 6 × 8 hard pine timber creosoted, about twenty feet long. Friend George very carefully made the tenons, and we were able to replace them in the old position from whence they came. This may sound easy, but just try it!
After a few hours of this work, the writer became exhausted. Hot baths and horse liniment helped somewhat, but I think I can still feel the effects. The chances are, our tenacious forefathers had no trouble whatsoever in this work.
We were able to re-use about fifty per cent of the old pine pins, or trunnells, recovered from the joints. The new ones we made by hand. I would suggest to anyone contemplating such a venture as this that he would be wise to anticipate endless frustration, hard work, and snide and caustic comments from onlookers and discouraging prospects of completion.
The embankment would cave in every few minutes, notwithstanding our amateurish shoring attempts, but we managed to keep ahead of the cave-ins by shoring up quickly before the whole dam caved in on top of us.
During all this, the level of the water in the mill pond had to be lowered so that we could work in this spot, which is about two or three feet below the bottom of the mill pond. The lowering of the water level resulted in great consternation to the inhabitants thereabouts, whose only concern seemed to be when were we going to raise the pond. No one seemed to care about our sudden demise from the pond breaking through the dam.
Of course, the pumps had to be working constantly while we were employed in this operation. One of these pumps was loaned to us by S. R. Nickerson of Hyannis, and the other was given us by Colonel Ralph Thacher of the Cape Cod Shipbuilding Corporation, some of the few persons who were sympathetic with our cause.
Although this pump from Colonel Thacher was probably around fifty years old, it proved to be a most reliable and excellent piece of apparatus, consisting of a large, horizontal, single cylinder, “make and break” engine, driving a heavy, eighteen-inch rubber diaphragm pump. It certainly puts to shame some of the modern pump equipment of today, chugging along hour after hour like a patient old horse without much noise and clatter.
We all became very fond of this sturdy antique which, to my mind, combines functional beauty with gratifying simplicity and reliability. Cooling was a simple matter of a pail of water in the cylinder jacket tank; lubrication was by a few grease cups and an outside glass oil container about the size of a large tea cup; and the starting was easy and positive, all by hand.
All the visitors seemed to be drawn to this piece of equipment when it was operating, and we signified our tribute by mounting a small flag on the pump every Saturday morning.