Andy Kelly

Sandy Hook, Gateway NRA, NPS
An Oral History Interview with Andy Kelly, Civilian Engineer
1909-1922
Interviewed by John Mulhern, NPS volunteer and resident of Sandy Hook
1908-1927
November 11, 1975
Transcribed by Mary Rasa, 2012

Editor’s notes in parenthesis ( )

JM: The voices that you are going to hear on this tape recorder are those of Andy Kelly who worked and lived at Sandy Hook for several years from about 1909 to 1922. Was it maybe?

AK: Yeah.

JM: Or something about that time and the other voice is John Mulhern, one of the volunteers in the parks. So you will be hearing all little bits and pieces of conversation that we are now looking around the Museum, the old Guardhouse, now the Museum. I mention what happened just before we got here and just before you got here I guess about a year. What was it? I guess 1908, April the 3rd, 1908 and they were building that (railroad) cut down there where the siding came into the Pumping Station they uncovered these skeletons and when we got here people were still talking about it. You know, I think that this man, do you remember Mr. Houston? (Mr. Mulhern is referring to Revolutionary War story of Lt. Halyburton and his search party who died on Sandy Hook in 1783. The men were buried there and their bodies were rediscovered in 1908. The Halyburton Monument located in Horseshoe Cove along the main road was built in the 1930s.)

AK: Oh Yeah.

JM: Patrick Houston, do you thing that that’s him?

AK: Hustis.

JM: Houston, he was the engineer down at the Power Plant, the chief when my father first went to work there. On account that Hustis worked up in the (Sandy Hook Proving Ground) Ordnance Shop.

AK: Right. (inaudible)

JM: I sort of remember Mr. Houston. He lived in that same house as we did in one of the rooms. And we lived in the rest of the house. And I kind of remember that anchor chain that he used to wear across his chest, a watch chain. Of course, Queen Elizabeth came here several years later and put that new monument down there that you now see down at that site. This is the old one that is according to the story that was destroyed by some French soldiers several years after it was erected. Some French soldiers came on this place on a war vessel.

AK: Maybe some of them knew me.

JM: There must be some of those people that were here when you were.

AK: Some of those faces probably changed from that.

JM: Now this was taken right at that time, April 15, 1908. You came here in 1909. So there must have been some of those people at that time.

AK: If they are the faces are not familiar.

JM: (inaudible) As well as a group of civilians.

AK: (Conversation irrelevant to interview.)

JM: Years later it was discovered when they were building a (railroad) cut through there and putting a siding for the railroad. (inaudible) Now that place, they built cantonments down there and all kinds of things and the ground doesn’t even look the same. You see those mounds of earth where the trains used to go through.

AK: I remember after you left the crossing, the Y on the right hand side, right close to the track there was a grave.

JM: One grave.

AK: Right. Was this it?

JM: That’s not it. This was where the train went through the cutting hill. No. That grave as I recall it was a marine soldier by the name of O’Connell or MacDonald or some kind of a name like that. They used to put flowers on the grave every Decoration Day and they somebody decided at some time or another that it should be moved and they moved the grave to a national cemetery. So there isn’t any more left. Somebody used to paint headstones for the thing. (inaudible.) (looking at photo) Now, would one of those men be you by any chance? That was down somewhere near the roundhouse or machine shops. In the background you can see the tent back there by where old Fort Lincoln (The Fort at Sandy Hook) is as it is sometimes called.

AK: I wouldn’t know. I can’t see it.

JM: We probably should have brought a magnifying glass around it and you might be able to you know pick it out a little more.

AK: That was the old engine.

JM: That was a 4-4 wheel drive.

AK: Yeah. 2-4-4. (inaudible)

JM: We have a picture of Tom Pike on an engine too.

AK: Jim Pike?

JM: Jim Pike, yeah. But then it doesn’t look like quite the same engine.

AK: This engine went down the ravine.

JM: Oh, I see.

AK: This one and another one that had a tank when we used two Pennsylvanians (Pennsylvania Railroad).

JM: Oh, is that right? I didn’t know about that change of business. So when they finally ended the railroad here it must have been Pennsylvania engines that were transferred to the Jersey Central (Railroad) and they took them out of here.

AK: Right. That’s right, two high wheelers. They were supposed to be fast engines at the time and they were too. They were six foot wheels.

JM: It was 35 miles an hour once you get going.

AK: We had at one time got up to 60, 70, 80 yeah.

JM: Mike said something about getting a locomotive up to something like 45 or 50 miles an hour coming down the straightaway.

AK: I used to race them (inaudible) once in while. (laughter) (inaudible with noise in background.) (Looking at photo of Western Union and Postal Telegraph Towers.) I was trying to think of who was in Western Union that was the, Johnny White.

JM: A tall thin fella, right?

AK: Yeah. And (John) O’Neill was over here I think.

JM: And do you remember Gould?

AK: Gould, yeah. He was on the ….

JM: Western Union.

AK: Western Union, yeah.

JM: And you know one of those boys lives out on Valley Drive where he has an antique shop just as you go into Highlands. (inaudible conversation) Jimmy Gould and Tommy Gould both and Billy Gould are still alive. Right now two of them are in Florida and the other one is in a nursing home in Staten Island.

AK: The O’Neill’s, they had a son.

JM: That’s right and he is in Staten Island too. I see him at the (inaudible) every once in a while. Bucky I guess they called him.

AK: Yeah. Bucky.

JM: Bucky. (Looking at photographs of disappearing guns) (inaudible) You know those were so finely counterbalanced that us kids could operate the guns with these big hand wheels and that crank.

AK: Yeah.

JM: We used to think it was great. We never raised them but we always would think it was great to traverse the guns.

AK: Yeah.

JM: It was so finely lubricated.

AK: They were, I can’t see it here, but they came back on to a set of rollers. A shovel full of sand in there would stop them right away. (inaudible)

JM: (referring to a gun) Do you remember when they shipped that out of here?

AK: Oh yeah.

JM: They had big carriage and they had two trucks, one on each end.

AK: The carriage was made in Baldwin automotive or locomotive works.

JM: A special mount for sharp turns for shipping it out. It’s hard to articulate it.

AK: It had 32 wheels under the carriage.

JM: I don’t remember that but I remember the pictures because that used to be a popular picture too.

AK: I was in the movies with it

JM: Is that right?

AK: We had a cue, yeah. We made what they call a fine switch move. We are not supposed to but to show them how easy it worked but they make. He said, “What do you think, Andy, can you make work?” I said, “Oh yeah, sure why not.”

JM: You’d try anything.

AK: I was young. What the heck.

JM: Well, I remember that thing alright. (inaudible) Down at the Proof Battery.

AK: The Proof Battery, yeah. (Sandy Hook Proving Ground Proof Battery)

JM: There was some question the other day, somebody asked me about all these guns they had lined up in there.

AK: Oh yeah.

JM: And that was in the Proof Battery.

AK: Right.

JM: And he insisted they only had one or two at a time but that wasn’t so. They had all.

AK: I remember the 14-inch gun from back to the first railway mount under it. It was turned over to the Navy. The Navy was testing it out at the Proof Battery.

JM: Is that right?

AK: I was, I had the engine there and every time they fired it, you know, it was knocked off the block in back. And they we had to push it up again. Two days and a night and I am working all the time so I told this Captain, I said, “Captain, I have got to go home. I have got to get a little sleep.” He said, “You can’t go home now.” I said, “I could get somebody else to come here.” He said, “You are doing alright young man, you are doing alright.” I told Captain Johnson, I said, “Captain, it’s got me. It’s too much.” He said, “You go on home.” (inaudible)

JM: That’s another Johnson. There was a couple of Colonel Johnson’s here. I know there was a Captain Johnson and there was a Sergeant Johnson who lived in NCO (Camp) Low here and he became captain during the War. I think he went back to NCO grade after the war. Do you remember Captain Johnson? He was very austere.

AK: Well, there was a Johnson that used to be in the machine shop.

JM: No.

AK: He later on was a colonel. He was made a colonel in the, he worked for Johnny Simpson.

JM: Is that right?

AK: He got in some kind of (inaudible) But then he got back in again and when they putting those guns up on the Highland hill this Bob Johnson, they put him up there. A very smart, very smart, he just died not too long ago.

JM: You remember this thing along here, the lighthouse on the bayside? (The West Beacon stood on Officers’ Row.)

AK: Oh yeah.

JM: That is long since gone and now there is another two family house right in this place.

AK: (inaudible) Gone by and I said, “There is one too many houses.”

JM: Well, they decided to take the lighthouse down and then when they took the lighthouse down they built a house. But they couldn’t build a house there while the lighthouse was still there. These were used as range lights. The little light on the bayside could be a range light with the big light on the ocean side. So, after they took the lighthouse down they built a new house in there.

AK: There were two lighthouses out when you come around the Hook.

JM: That’s right. Range lights. This is that old fort.

AK: That is part of that old fort where the tank was, is.

JM: That’s right. The tank still is. I think there was three tanks there.

AK: Oh.

JM: The old wooden one, then a small steel one, and then they built a new steel one that is there now. (Looking at photographs. Conversation irrelevant to interview.)

JM: That was the building that you lived in. (Building 101, no longer standing but was across from Barracks 102 inside today’s Coast Guard fence.)

AK: That was the big barracks, the big wooden barracks.

JM: I think there is a better picture of that around here someplace. (Inaudible.) But that is where Dan Murphy lived and his wife.

AK: That’s right. He was a bus driver.

JM: Now that was where Sergeant Rudder lived? Wasn’t it? Now there is a wooden house too right alongside.

AK: I am turned around. Yeah, Rudder lived there, yeah.

JM: You know we were talking about (Light Keeper Stanton). Take a look at this letter. This is from, can you see that? I can read it for you. This is from an assistant keeper and it says and he is writing to the head man of the 3rd District. “I am sorry that I have to call on you but I am tired of the constant abuse of the keeper. I have taken it for over two years without saying anything before. He is the most profane man at times that I have ever heard talk. He has cursed me and called me very vile names a great many times for no cause whatsoever and if there is any way of stopping it I would like to have it done. I don’t want you to injure the man in any way for he has a large family to support and a nice family too. I want only his abuse stopped.” Now that is the Stanton family and the five children that they had. “I think he will tell you that I am not able to do the work here but I do more than my share of regular work and have done it all the time. Captain if you can give me one of the small lights to tend I would feel very grateful to you. But I would like to be by myself and away from this man. Should a vacancy occur in Staten Island or on the Jersey Shore I would consider it a great favor if you would give it to me. I am the man Mr. West spoke to you about who lost a leg in the Battle of Coal Harbor.” And is signed by Charles Brewer, B-R-EW-E-R, Assistant Keeper, Hook Beacon, Sandy Hook.

AK: Who is he berating there?

JM: He is berating Mr. Stanton.

AK: Oh yeah.

JM: And then this is a letter from the Lighthouse Establishment, General Depot, Tompkinsville, New York, Staten Island and the subject is North Hook Beacon, Discipline and it’s addressed to Mr. William Stanton, Keeper, North Hook Beacon. And it says, “The fact that you and your assistant keeper are on bad terms has been reported to me by the assistant inspector. If either has cause for complaint against the other, the remedy lies in reporting the offense to the inspector, not in an interchange of abusive language. The assistant has been instructed that he must comply with the regulations of the Lighthouse Establishment and obey the lawful orders of the keeper. But you and he are strongly admonished that quarrelling under any circumstances will not be allowed.” Signed Very respectfully, A W. Brown, Commander, United States Navy. That is the Stanton family we knew. They were good boys. Evidently old Mr. Stanton might have been…

AK: He might have been a little different.

JM: He might have been a little tough. (laughter) But those families, the girls and the boys were certainly fine families. That’s what it says there in that letter. (Conversation irrelevant to interview.)

AK: (Bread) was five cents too.

JM: Remember those.

AK: I do. I remember my wife sending the kids to the bake shop down here for tomorrow’s bread

JM: I know Tony Murray (The baker).

AK: Murray.

JM: Anthony Murray.

AK: And when they get home half of the middle was be eaten.

JM: Your fellas did that too? We used to do that too.

AK: The kids used to do that.

JM: Yeah.

AK: My kids. (irrelevant.) (Tape stops and starts outside.)

JM: 11 November ’75. (irrelevant to interview) (in front of Building 36.) Andy, this is one of those buildings about which there has been some talk from time to time and as my memory serves me this used to be the stable.

AK: There was no what you call them on top of there. What do you call them?

JM: No dormer windows.

AK: Dormers.

JM: There wasn’t. And of course, all those buildings at one time had slate roofs on them. So, apparently when they built those dormers they must have changed over the roof from whatever they had now. That is slate that is up there now? I can’t tell.

AK: I guess.

JM: See. They converted the thing (building) to the (NCO) Officers’ Open Mess but as I say my memory serves me that this was the stables. Is that the way that you remember it too? The stables?

AK: (Inaudible. Very windy outside.)

JM: Evidently every mule had his own little window there or his own breathing spell or whatever they had there.

AK: (Inaudible.)

JM: It would be interesting to get in there now to see what is in there. Although now it’s an open mess. I don’t know if that is an NCO Mess or an Officers’ Open Mess or what it is. Evidently it was at some time.

AK: There is where I first started to work.

JM: And on the left where those two yellow buildings are those are part of the Coast Guard establishment those two yellow buildings and its right in there where that old wooden barracks was.

AK: Right.

JM: That big long barracks in which you lived for some time and which is not gone. That’s been a little change. I don’t know when that building was built but it was built before we got here. We got here in 1908. The building was here at that time. In fact, we thought it was an old building at that time.

AK: In 1909, it was quarters, civilian quarters and they also had a boarding house downstairs in it.

JM: Oh, is that right? I never knew.

AK: A man by the name of Mr. Rice.

JM: Mr. Rice.

AK: Rice he used to run…afterwards he ran the steamroller here on the Post.

JM: That is where I remember the name Rice from because I don’t remember that restaurant there.

AK: John Rice.

JM: John Rice.

AK: My father was here at that time. Of course, I remember when my father was here. He used to board with Rice. They used to give him pay with two checks. One for Rice, and one from the government to him with his own money.

JM: So, they actually supplied his food or doing that and quarters I guess too. Did you father have quarters? He must have had quarters.

AK: Yeah. He had quarters upstairs.

JM: Oh, I see.

AK: All civilians upstairs.

JM: So, there really was kind of a barracks building?

AK: It was really, yeah.

JM: Originally. I remember when Tony Murray lived there, the baker and when Dan Murray the Postmaster lived there.

AK: The Postmaster.

JM: You remember him I am sure.

AK: Tom Brown lived there too and that’s the same era.

JM: Oh yeah. That’s another family we have been trying to get in touch with and they lived I guess it was in Metuchen too and we used to write to Mary and Catherine Brown.

AK: I think they went up that way somewhere.

JM: That’s right. They had two girls and then later, they had a late child a third child was a boy. That was some time later.

AK: I can’t…

JM: The two curly headed girls I remember well: Catherine and Mary.

AK: Yeah. They lived on the bayside of the building.

JM: That’s right.

AK: We lived on this side.

JM: And then there was that one old building on this, the other wooden building on this end where Sergeant Brewer lived.

AK: Yeah. Yeah.

JM: And I think wasn’t he a photographer or something like that? I just had a faint recollection.

AK: He was a first sergeant in the Ordnance.

JM: Is that what it was?

AK: Yes.

JM: Well, that is probably why he had the separate quarters too. Plus I remember when that red Ordnance Building was built up there. (Building 102 built in 1909) That was a long time ago but I just have a faint recollection of that being built. Do you know when that was built?

AK: No.

JM: Now, you know, I may only be thinking that I remember when it was built because sometimes my memory plays tricks.

AK: As I told you when they had the boarding house down at the old ordnance barracks, see that was the old ordnance barracks. The new one was already built then. That’s where they were.

JM: Then it must have been there.

AK: They used to have a beautiful garden on the other side of this building.

JM: Yeah. That was part of Tommy Brown’s business. Wasn’t it running the garden?

AK: Yep.

JM: He was known as the Post Gardener I think

AK: I guess he was. Yeah. He was the boss of the stables there when we were in the stables.

JM: I didn’t know that either. Well, we wrote to the girls hoping that we could, you know, have them down here or around some of the old grounds and the letters never came back. So, they might just not have gotten around to answering the letters, you know.

AK: Are you speaking of Pearl Murray?

JM: Yeah.

AK: Did she teach school down here?

JM: That’s right.

AK: She taught my wife.

JM: Yes. And Margaret and I were over to see her about oh how long it was, about a month and half ago. We went over for a short visit. We were there all afternoon. You know, talking about all kinds of things. It seemed very clear in her memory about everything that went on out here everyday. And there was a time when she taught school over in this building over here. Because late, long after we left here, they moved from the old school into what was the Ordnance Research Lab (Building 109). That was the granite building on the corner.

AK: Oh yeah, on the corner.

JM: And that got too small and then they moved over to the first floor of this building over here. The Ordnance Barracks (Building 102).

AK: The Ordnance Barracks, yeah?

JM: And they were in here for several years on the first floor. There was still soldiers on the upper floor and Pearl said, “You know, it used to get so noisy in there. The fellas would be running back and forth upstairs and all this noise in the classroom downstairs.” (Windy noise making audio inaudible) Oh yes. And she is more or less confined to a wheelchair. She has arthritis very badly but she’s married and she is still living up there in the old house, up at Twin Lights.

AK: Oh yeah.

JM: You know her father was in the Postal Telegraph Service.

AK: Yeah. Yeah.

JM: They still live in what remains of the Postal Telegraph house. They tore down the tower but the living quarters are still there and she told me that every once in a while somebody, you know, would like to get out of there and turn it over to somebody or another and she said they never might get around to that. (Tape stops and restarts at an outside location.) We are now down here at what used to the point of the Hook and you probably I am sure you remember all this business and the way the thing has changed.

AK: Oh my goodness. It used to be down here and not over 200 feet wide I would say. Around 200 feet wide from the inside to the outside and now look how far. My goodness that must be 500 or 600 yards right there.

JM: I think it must be that much or maybe even more. You know it could be up to a half a mile from up here until you get all the way out to the place where you can put your feet in the water again.

AK: My goodness. What a change.

JM: It is really hard to believe. Up at the far end of this point is a large sanitary dump and a lot of stuff that the Army wanted to dispose of and a lot of stuff that the present inhabitants of Sandy Hook want to get rid of. It is just dumped out there. It is a closed area to all intensive purposes.

AK: It looks to me while we are going around the point in the boat that it is deteriorating out there. The what was once stable land, you know.

JM: Yes. I think that is right, Andy. I think that right where that beacon is out to the left out there

AK: Yeah. Right.

JM: That the line in there seems to be working back into the Hook proper.

AK: Seems like it. Yeah.

JM: And the buildup is farther off I guess in a northeasterly direction. So, it is quite a spread of land out there now. Of course, it is hazardous from a navigational point of view.

AK: Almost have to change the channel.

JM: Change the charts. That is right. (laughter) And in here on the bayside there is noticeable changes on the land and on the bayside of the point here too and up in the area which is now a restricted area. (Tape stops and restarts.) A very kind and convenient little device and easy to operate. All you would have to do was know how to operate it. Just like a steam locomotive I guess.

AK: Yeah. Yeah.

JM: I guess it was a complicated business of how to run the throttle and the brakes and whatever else there is. The machine undoubtedly would go and take you places.

AK: Is Norm Simpson still…?

JM: No. The only one of the Simpson’s that is left is Pete. He lives over on East Lincoln Avenue in Atlantic Highlands.

AK: Oh yeah.

JM: I have talked with him a few times and I was gonna get from him some pictures of his father. You know, his father had so much to do with the construction here.

AK: Yeah.

JM: In this place and everybody knew about John Simpson. And everybody knew what a hard driver Johnny Simpson was. If you wanted to say about anybody being compared to a hard driver you just said, “Well you must be just another Johnny Simpson.” (laughter.)

AK: That’s true. He was but like my father said, “He wouldn’t ask you to do anything that he wouldn’t do by himself.”

JM: I believe that is right. My father, when my mother would be getting after my father to do something every once in a while when he was already busy doing a lot of other things he would say, “Johnny Simpson, would you wait until I get this job through and then we will do something else for you.” He used to have that little habit of calling my mother Johnny Simpson every once in a while.

AK: He was a…

JM: When you mentioned the batteries today and the ventilation tunnels once summer when I was doing some summer work for him as a high school boy, Scotty O’Hearn from the Highlands and myself and Scotty was a great big fellow as you probably remember. Scotty and myself were given a job down in Battery Mills and Kingman to cut through those concrete walls with a sledgehammer and a chisel to provide some ventilation ducts. I don’t know. We worked on that for a couple of weeks and you couldn’t see what we had chipped away. (laughter) That concrete was put there to stay there forever.

AK: Well, I think the boys that went to high school gave him a lot of fits. He gave my father more fits than him because used to have kind of charge of the boys, Davenport and the boy in the Highlands Martin

JM: Britton

AK: Britton. Yeah. Him and Davenport and a few more of them like Britton. Britton used to tell me what they used to do. He said, “Your father used to get so mad he could kill them.”

JM: I think that Britton was a kind of devilish sort of a guy anyhow.

AK: Oh yeah.

JM: They lived, during World War I we had to move off the Post and we lived up there in Highlands right across the street from Martin Britton. So we could, we were well acquainted with his loud voice and his way of cutting up you might say. Being the bad man of the neighborhood or something. Of course, he never did anything that was really wrong but you always knew when Martin Britton was around and when he would be calling Tommy and you could hear him calling Tommy if you were downtown.

AK: That’s what I meant. Tommy was working with Davenport down here.

JM: Oh it was Tommy that was working.

AK: Tommy yeah.

JM: Oh, well him. I don’t know if he is still alive.

AK: He died. He was going to get married in two more months, the second time. He was going to get married and up and died.

JM: Well, there are a lot of the old ones still around though, Andy.

AK: Yeah. Well, there seems to be if it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have known where Pearl Murray was or Davenport because I didn’t know there married names.

JM: Yes. Well, in my little notebook I have a lot of names of people that were here at one point in time or another and before the day is over I will just read a few of these and it may just bring to mind some of those people.

AK: I would like to get Gladys’ married name.

JM: Right out here is a tanker coming up the beach. See him right off shore there. Looks like you can almost put your on him.

AK: He is on the inside sound.

JM: That’s right. He is on the inside sound. He is probably going to Perth Amboy.

AK: Yep.

JM: And that tower out there that you mentioned that tall tower is a Moran Signal Tower. And also it’s a navigation aid worldwide type of navigation aid and I don’t know what other communication aids there are.

AK: It looks so, we are coming around the point in a boat and the whole thing looks strange, you know, on the account of the buildup on shores.

JM: Yes. It’s like the Italian boot out there it just goes out and out forever.

AK: At one time you were out on the point and you were in the channel.

JM: Oh sure, in no time at all you were out there. But the change really hasn’t cut down the effectiveness of the currents out there. The currents off the point there are likely to swing you around unless you may be out of control.

AK: That riptide.

JM: Well, we will drive down towards the shops down there at the other end for a bit. (Tape stops and restarts around 9 gun battery.) These of course, were the main fortifications of Sandy Hook and there seems to be some question about which guns were in what place and maybe you could tell us which one what size guns approximately were here.

AK: As I remember those first three batteries, see where the towers are there?

JM: Yes.

AK: Well, each one of them had two guns, see.

JM: Yes.

AK: The first one was (Battery) Bloomfield. I will always remember the rotation the first three. Bloomfield, then (Battery) Halleck, and (Battery) Alexander. (From left to right, they were Batteries Alexander, Halleck, Bloomfield and Richardson. They were 12-inch guns as I recall. (Halleck had three 10-inch guns. All the rest were 12-inch.)

JM: Yes.

AK: The next one down here, Battery Peck, I think that was an 8-inch. These were the disappearing carriages, Crozier carriage. They became obsolete after General Crozier retired.

JM: My goodness.

AK: they should have done away with them before he retired but somehow they couldn’t. afterwards it was replaced by the barbette. That was a stationary gun on railway mounts. These guns became just a picture. Something to look at.

JM: Did they test fire the railroad artillery down here or had they been test fired at Aberdeen before they sent it up here?

AK: No. That never came. This was before Aberdeen. There wasn’t very much going on in Aberdeen at that time. We still had the Proof Battery up here.

JM: I see.

AK: And it was test fired at the Proof Battery up here, just down there a little ways.

JM: I remember some time, and I don’t remember when it was that there were a few railroad artillery rifles out there on cars out near the Highlands, out near Highland Beach. I had forgotten what period that was. Do you remember when those things went out there? They had a couple of Howitzers out there. Short weapons, railroad mounts and they had a couple of long rifles out there on railroad mounts. I don’t remember them ever being fired but they were supposed to be some part of the coast defenses of Sandy Hook. (The railway guns became part of Sandy Hook’s defenses in 1930 when the 52nd Coast Artillery was assigned to Fort Hancock.)

AK: I can’t recall because I don’t see how there could be anything on the railway mount.

JM: They weren’t very large guns, about 8-inch guns which, of course, is not small but they don’t compare to 14 (inch guns) either.

AK: But where would they be, on the main line?

JM: Yes. They were on the main line out there. You know, they would move them into position and then take them off again and that would only be for a short while because it would have to be between trains or something like that. I don’t remember them ever putting out special tracks to put them on. Again that is a long time ago as far as I am concerned and I just don’t remember except I do have pictures of them somewhere in my files but I haven’t been able to find those either.

AK: Well, you know, there was another track from the Proof Battery all the way down to the Y, the ocean front.

JM: Yes. I know about that.

AK: It might have been in there.

JM: Well, here and there when you walk around through the woods down here even now you find the remains of trackage down there. It was put in at some time or another for something or another for reasons that I don’t know either.

AK: Well, the only reason that I might say is because when they built the seawall all the ways along they had to move their track as they went and take it up but to my knowledge there wasn’t any more tracks that I knew of.

JM: And the question there is a spur that goes in behind Mills and Kingman.

AK: Yeah. That’s right.

JM: I saw the remains of that as I was walking in through there and I didn’t recall there had ever been one and I found the remains of that so that must have come in off the main line somewhere around the Y.

AK: Just below the Y. Yeah.

JM: Well, we can go down a little bit farther down here to the (Tape stops and restarts.)

AK: Well, this was one of the bathing beaches. There hasn’t been much bathing here I don’t believe.

JM: But this was one of the fishing beaches and of course, you can see that the fisherman are at it right now.

AK: I don’t think you could fish here during the bathing season.

JM: Well…

(Tape ends abruptly)


END OF INTERVIEW