KYCLAY-L Archives

From: "Jess Wilson" <>
Subject: Re: Fw: [KYCLAY-L] 1860 "Mecanic"
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 19:38:47 -0500

Pat Oneal:
When you mention a steam engine, you touch on a subject
close to my heart. As a little boy, I rmemmber my youngeer
brother and I play with a flutter mill in Huckleberry creek as
Dad rode off on Old Blue in search of a saw mill.
He met the old man, Bob McQueen, who had worked with
sawmills until it appeared that the oil from them had soaked
into his skin.
He said," Pleas, two men met in the road and got in a fuss.
One said to the other,'I wish you were in Hell.'
The other replied, 'I wish you had my saw mill.' it has
been argued as to who wished the other the worst., now, Pleas
Wilson do you still want a sawmill?"
For many years Dad's sawmill, powered by an old steam
tractor that had been shorn if it's tractor wheels, sat in front
of our house at the mouth of Huckleberry. It was there the
evening of September 18, 1941, when I came home after dark and
had observed the largest display of aurora borealis (northern
lights) ever seen this far south. The whole northern half of the
sky was filled with long ripling curtains of many colored
lights.
I called the family out of the house to see the sight.
There was still some steam in the old steam boiler and Dad went
down and pulled the whistle cord for the longest time so that
other in the valley might see the spectacle.
A few miles up the valley, an old man had gone to bed. His
children roused him from an early sleep and as he got out on his
porch and saw the lights, the sound of Dads whistle reached him,

" Lord, have mercy. " he shouted, "It's Judgement day, I
hear Angel Gabriel's horn."
And speaking of mechanics, I have the flue expander I once
saw my father use. I was passing the mill one day when I heard
a hammering but I could see no one. I discovered Dad in the fire
box of the old mill boiler, swagging out the flues, pipes that
carried the heat and smoke through the water back to the flue
box where it exited up the smoke stack.
Of the hundreds of people who have observer my collection
of old tools, only one man had recoginized what the flue
expander was. Even the world known M. I. T. professor, Philip
Morrison, one of six men who developed the Atomic Bomb, did not
know what it was.
JESS WILSON
POSSUM TROT ROAD
MANCHESTER KY40962

----------
> From: Pat Oneal <>
> To:
> Subject: Fw: Fw: [KYCLAY-L] 1860 "Mecanic"
> Date: Saturday, February 06, 1999 6:47 PM
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <>
> To: <>
> Date: Saturday, February 06, 1999 2:20 PM
> Subject: Re: Fw: [KYCLAY-L] 1860 "Mecanic"
>
>
> >The steam engine in various forms has been around for a long
time. Many
> >different uses were made of it. Maybe a 'mechanic' worked on
steam
> engines.
> >There were also lots of other mechanical instruments around
and anyone
> working
> >on these could be a mechanic. The OED has 'mechanic[' going
back to 1549 -
> >pertaining to or involving manual labor or skills,
Industrial meaning goes
> >back to 1721.
> >Having a manual occupation or working at a trade goes back to
1549. There
> are
> >several other meanings that go back to the 16th and 17th
centuries.
> >
>
>
>
> ==== KYCLAY Mailing List ====
>
> Digging for our Roots!
>
> To post to the list:
>
> Heritage Connections:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/8032
>
>
>
>
>
>

This thread:

• Re: Fw: [KYCLAY-L] 1860 "Mecanic" by "Jess Wilson" <>