This
is the story of the so-called 'boulder or large rock' which is at present
mounted on a concrete base in Washington park at the north side of the old
Sandusky High School building. (Adams Junior High) written by Norbert A.
Lange
In the fall of the year 1910 the Hinde & Dauch Paper Co. began construction
of a paper mill on Mills Street, just north of West Madison Street. I had
graduated from Sandusky High School the spring of that year, had worked at Cedar
Point in the summer and after Cedar Point had closed for the season was looking
for another job. Jobs were scarce but I was
fortunate in landing a job with Hinde & Dauch as a timekeeper and general
errand boy on the construction location & I
was paid $35.00 a month. Common labor was paid 17 ˝ cents an hour for a 59-hour
week. George Feick & Sons was the builder and the excavation for the
building was done with hand shovels.
In the
first months of the year 1911 excavation for the boiler room was started and it
was then that the workmen began uncovering what appeared to be a large boulder.
However, recognizing the boulder to be what it was, namely, a large
'concretion', I persuaded them to delay demolishing the specimen until I could
get Mr. E.L.Moseley to come out to look at it. I called Mr. Moseley by phone at
the high school, where he was a science teacher, and that afternoon after school
he came out to the site. Not realizing beforehand the large size of the
specimen, he brought with him a little hand satchel so as to carry it back to
the high school with him.
He
was astounded when he saw how large it was and immediately began making
arrangements to have it removed to a location near the high school building. A
spur track of a railroad to bring fuel to the boiler house was already in place,
and Mr. Bender, the local railroad agent was persuaded to bring in a wrecking
train with a crane to lift the specimen from the pit onto a flat car. The car
with the specimen was then taken to the foot of Jackson Street. Here it was met
with a so-called stone wagon, a low flat-bottomed dray drawn by horses and
furnished by George Feick, Sr. Loaded on the dray it proceeded up Jackson
Street. The dray got as far as the commercial
hotel, as it was then called,(between Water Street and Market Street on Jackson)
when the 5 pm whistles blew. Five o'clock was quitting time, and, of course, the
men quit work, unhitched the team of horses from the dray, which was left
standing there for the night.
When
morning came, the dray was still there but it was found that during the night
the specimen had broken into two pieces. Mr. Moseley then had it hauled to
Hinkey's Blacksmith Shop on East Market Street where an iron band was fitted
around it to hold the two pieces together. In
the meantime a concrete base had been constructed in Washington Park at the
location where it now stands and where it has always been since its removal from
the place where it was discovered.
