Month: May 2020

This touching fictional children’s story, by Mara Rockliff, takes an apprentice stone cutter through her journey as mother and proud worker on the magnificent cathedral. Me and Momma and Big John is gorgeously illustrated by William Low.

From the book jacket: “Momma comes home from work, tired and sore from a long day at her job. She’s a stonecutter now helping to build ‘Big John’ – the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. She works for many weeks on just one stone, and her son John wonders how she does it. When at last Momma’s stone is finished, her son John can’t wait to see it. But when he arrives at the cathedral, he can’t believe it is just one plain stone – where is Momma’s name? How will all the people know this is Momma’s art?”

“One of the apprentices was a young mother, Carol Hazel, who inspired Me and Momma and Big John. ‘Stonecutting is in my blood’ she says today. ‘The cathedral is a beautiful thing. and beautiful people helped build it.'”

– Mara Rockliff

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Images From Me and Momma and Big John

A New York Times article, Feb. 23, 2001, reviewing the closure of the stoneyard and where the apprentices had gone, indicated this: “Carol Hazel, who raised four children as a single mother at the yard, plans to graduate this year from Mercy College with a degree in education”

• Our thanks to Mara Rockliff for letting us present her book. She is the author of many books for children. You can visit her online at www.mararockliff.com.
• Thank you as well to William Low for permission to use images of his wonderful illustrations. He is an award winning illustrator, author and painter. You can see his work at www.williamlow.com.
• This book is available HERE

The columns arrived in New York aboard the barge towed by the ocean tug Clara Clarita. The short but complicated trip overland to the cathedral began. The tug made eight trips from the quarry at Vinalhaven in Penobscot Bay, Maine to the 135th street pier on the Hudson River. It was first intended to roll the columns onto a special truck and haul them using some 30 horses. It was later decided to haul the columns by means of a hoisting engine. The entire operation of moving and raising the columns is chronicled here.

The general contractor constructed the special wagon. The wheels are built-up of seven thicknesses of 3 inch oak plank. The steel axle bears directly on the ends of the wood fibers. Thus assuming an even distribution of weight of a 90 ton column, there should be a unit pressure of nearly 2,000 lbs. per sq. inch on the ends of the oak fibers. The wheels proved sufficiently strong. The weight of the truck without a load was about 8 tons.

The Hoisting Engine and Traction Engine

A hoisting engine pulls the wagon ahead by means of 3/4 inch wire cable reeved through two triple blocks. The wagon is hauled ahead about 90 ft. then a tail rope from the second drum of the engine is used to pull the movable triple block back 90 feet. There are two 100 ft. lengths 1 3/4 inch wire cable which can be coupled together so that the wagon can be moved ahead 270 ft. at one setting of the hoisting engine.

One of the lengths of 1 3/4 in. cable is unhooked and moved to one side after moving the first 90 ft. The movable triple-block is hooked on to the second length of cable. This in turn is thrown to one side when the wagon has been drawn ahead 90 ft. more. Finally the movable triple-block is hooked direct to the tongue of the wagon advancing the last 90 ft.

From Dock to Cathedral Completed

Most noteworthy, it was necessary to anchor the hoisting engine every 270 ft. of forward movement. as a result there were 26 separate operations along the way. Therefore it t00k about six days to make the trip with the load and to unload the column. In contrast it takes two hours for the empty wagon to return to the dock. In three or four hours the wagon has received a new column.

Certainly the number of men and equipment had an impact on the time frame. The crew consisted of four laborers, one engine man and one foreman. The equipment consisted of a 40-HP, Buffalo-Pitts traction engine and a 7.5 x 10 inch double-cylinder hoisting engine. They are fed with steam from the traction engine.

Raising the Columns

After the moving of the columns, the raising was ready to take place. The gallows frame used in raising the columns consists simply of two legs or masts 96 ft. long. It is furthermore well guyed from the top, and tackle blocks give 24 “parts” to the hoisting cable. The cable is 3/4-in. wire rope. This cable is reeved through the blocks and its two free ends pass to the drums of two hoisting engines. The longer column section weighs 90,000 lbs. As a result each leg of the gallows frame has to support this weight plus the weight of the guy lines. The timber is Washington fir. From Seattle it shipped overland; the diameter was approximately 24″.

The Raising Sequence and Rigging

Fig. 1 shows the method of securing the necessary hold on the column. There was a 3 in. projecting ledge of rough granite left at the upper end of the column. A yoke consisting of 14 in. x 14 in. timbers securely bolted together at this end is provided with two large U-bolts. Short loops of wire cable fastened the yoke to three single blocks. Additionally, a lewis positioned in the center of the end of the column attaches to a single block.

Fig. 2 shows a runway of heavy timbers upon which the column rests before the lifting begins. The lower end of the column is provided with two large iron dowel pins which rest upon a rough carriage. A runway of rollers carries the carriage and column. By wrapping a rope around the lower end of the column it prevents it moving by jerks. As a result a hand winch controls the free end of the rope.

Fig. 3 shows the column in position to be lowered to its base. Workers remove the yokes and using plugs and feathers remove the rough top of the column. Finally they dress the area to receive the upper section of the column.

Similarly the process (shown below) to raise the upper section and seat it on top of the lower section is repeated. Jones Bros. of Boston, Mass. had the subcontract for delivering and erecting the granite columns. The work of moving and raising the columns was under the direction of Superintendent Willis F. Howland.

It took over five years from the first order to the quarry, to the moving and raising of all the columns.

• Engineering News, Vol. 50, No. 23, December 3, 1903
• Engineering News, Vol 51, No. 9, September 1, 1904

As master builder, James Bambridge’s job is to plan and direct the overall project. He coordinates the production of working drawings from the architect’s plans with the delivery of stone from the quarry. He has to follow the stone’s progress through the yard and its final application to the southwest tower. Ordinarily, a specialist working under Bambridge would do the setting out. They would turn out half-inch scale working drawings from the architect’s one-eighth scale renderings. They would also produce the full scale templates in zinc. These cross sections of complicated stone units, such as colonetted columns, are laid out on a spacious floor. It would be similar to a full-scale lofting floor in a boatyard. Bambridge had space in the cathedral’s crypt for doing this.

The interior was largely complete by the time construction ceased in 1941. The exterior, where the absence of any towers created a harsh, cut-off look was much more obviously unfinished. The original architectural firm of Ralph Adams Cram became Hoyle Doran and Berry Architects in the 1940’s. Cram left drawings for the front two towers, as well as for a still larger Central tower over the cathedral’s crossing. The latest revisions to the cathedral drawings were done by Cram before his death in 1942. It is these drawings that provide the basic outline for the work facing Bambridge and his crew. John Doran of the successor firm was one of only a few architects at the time that construction on the cathedral restarted in the 1980’s that could draw gothic structures.

Starting Where the Architect Left Off

The process is complex, however, since the designs Cram left were never detailed or made into working drawings. Since the size, shape and placement of each stone must be determined in advance, Mr. Bambridge’s role in design was as crucial as the architect’s. While initial preparations were underway in the stoneyard, Bambridge worked on the drawings from his home in Cornwall and in New York. He had an office in Diocesan House and an apartment in Synod House, both in the Cathedral Close.

The working drawing shows every stone in the face. In the center of each is a circled number. Each stone has its own number and each has a card in Bambridge’s file describing it and its position, in code. S would mean the south tower. D means it’s the fourth section up. The fraction numbers are its dimensions. The other number is its cubic volume. At year’s end, Bambridge totes up how much foot cubage is produced. He checks it against the foot-cubage the quarry has delivered and arrives at a waste factor. That factor is important in cost control. His nerve center is a room in the cathedral’s basement. Crouched on the floor, he turned the drawings into programs for stone cutting.

The Setting Out Uses Zinc Templates

Zinc is used in making the templates as it does not contract or expand based on the temperature in the stone cutting shed. It was necessary to create full size drawings of some sections in order to make the trade work templates. This was done by first sliding a sheet of zinc under the full size drawing. Holes were then pricked through the paper at relevant points onto the zinc below along the lines of the drawing creating a series of dots. The dots were then connected to form the lines of the template. The lines were created with a sharp scriber forming a thin groove on the surface of the zinc. The surface was then treated with a copper sulfate solution which reacted with the zinc to make black clear lines. The zinc was then snapped by repeating the scribing process or cut with tin snips.

In addition to cutting the template, the specialist would specify joints for the stonecutters, produce a job ticket on each stone to be cut and take care of production schedules. Since only Bambridge was in on the original planning and timetable decisions, he did both planning and directing. Bambridge later taught D’Ellis Kincannon this part of the process and turned it over to him. He became highly accomplished at the setting out process. Cynie Linton also learned to do the setting out. Over time, mylar replaced the traditional zinc which made an easier and less expensive process.

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From Cutting Shed to Tower

Each card in Bambridge’s file becomes a job ticket that goes to the stoneyard. When a stone is produced from it, the master mason takes a crayon pencil and colors that numbered stone on his copy of the working drawing. This system means that no stone is duplicated. The stones are cut to millimeter accuracy, just like medieval stonework. The towers could be put up dry. Mortar is used to take up minute discrepancies in the stone, and to keep out the weather.

The yardstick used is to design and cut so that it would stay up there on its own with no mortar.

– James Bambridge

In a modern masonry building, once the second floor is designed, the same pattern repeats for the next 20 floors. Here, each stone is an individual piece to fit a given space. In the 12th century they would work the stone as it came from the quarry. The stone was cut to whatever it would make. To keep faith with that medieval system, Bambridge would deliberately throw in an off-length ashlar or quoin. Therefore when someone looks up at the building it would not look totally repetitive all the way up. The eye is forced to move around. This then replicates more of the old Gothic style.

Dean Morton liked to point out that the use of such 700-year-old techniques is what separates the work at St. John from other contemporary cathedral building projects, such as the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. “Their ashlars are all cut and finished to standard sizes at the quarry. They’re delivered to the site ready to lay up like bricks.”

Thanks to Steve Boyle for all he contributed to this post