One of the first jobs I had at the Denver Service Center for the NPS was working at the recently acquired Lemon Tavern, at the top of the Allegheny Portage Railroad, where once Charles Dickens gave a talk, and interpretors give (or gave) for the visitors. Nearby coal deposits fueled the seven inclined-plane funicular track sections on which canal boats were hauled up the grade from level to level by manila rope, later replaced its thought by wire rope, perhaps by Roebling.
At the top, near Cresson, PA, where Admiral Peary, polar explorer was born (it's the scientific International Polar Year by the way) on the flat section we listened to a thesis on how in part it was built, by a researcher. Apparently, stone blocks were drilled for locust wood pegs or posts. Then a type of metal clamp for the rails was inserted into the series of blocks (instead of "ties") and the natural expansion of the locust wood secured the "pin" which this might be an example of, to the rail. Perhaps the hole is a "safety" feature as is used on some metal fabrication for "tie wires" to keep, for example, aircraft bolts from loosening too far and falling out and as a result lost to gravity. The choice of wood is also used instead of metal columns by the way as "lolly columns" in some houses, like the one I grew up in and perhaps the wood of the many of the columns holding up the large stone constructed "Lemon Tavern" in its "basement".
Actually after the covered underground garage was removed, built by the previous owner, the "basement" was at ground level on the slope and part of a two story porch we investigated, a vague "weather" pattern apparent in the face of the building towards the vehicle road which replaced another, once over the only "skewed arch" bridge in the Western hemisphere quite a marvel in stonework.
The site is near the Prince Gallitzin spring, once to have been a tsar of Russia, chose instead to leave with his mother from Holland, to be a Catholic priest in Pennsylvania, converting those along the Alleghenies, the spring the best, it's claimed, he sampled.
In other words the previous owner used to exit the front door at the "ground" over his garage, what was once the second-story porch door, where perhaps Charles Dickens gave his oration, logically other locations really don't make much sense. He was very popular celebrity, once swimming in the Boston, MA harbor.
It appears on some of the Staffordshire blue transfer printed "china". It was replaced by the "Horseshoe Bend" engineering triumph near Altoona, PA as engineering and power in locomotives increased. Could be?
- - Subject: Oops wrong mystery object! Sorry I meant the central Pennsylvania ones.
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