Michael grinned at his friend. “Besides being terrified, Gaylord, what did you think?”
“That’s a terrible, terrible place. I’ll never go down there again. I don’t care if Mr. Horace Greeley fires me.”
“It was pretty bad.” All the while they were down there, Michael had been thinking of his son. He wished he could have brought Dermot down there so he could see for himself the terrible working conditions. He was sure the experience would have banished from his mind any thought of working in a caisson.
Gaylord downed his second whiskey and shook his head. “Who would want to work in that ghastly environment?”
“A man who needs money, or a man who needs a job, or—” He suddenly thought of his son. “A man who thinks he has something to prove.”
Gaylord grunted. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. There’s not enough money in the whole wide world to make me work in that ghastly hellhole.”
Two weeks later, Gaylord appeared at the Ranahan’s door. “A terrible thing has happed at the Brooklyn Bridge,” he told Emily.
Seated at the kitchen table, he recounted to Emily and Michael what had happed. “It seems that a fire broke out in the caisson. Washington Roebling went down into the caisson to direct the efforts to extinguish the flames. Best as I can ascertain, working down there in the compressed air for so long caused him to develop what they call ‘caisson disease.’”
“What is that?” Emily asked.
“It’s a mysterious illness that affects men who work down in the caissons. The symptoms are excruciating joint pain, paralysis, convulsions, numbness, speech impediments, and, in some cases, death. Mr. Roebling is partially paralyzed and is confined to bed. They say he will never be able to visit the worksite again.”
“No man should have to work in those conditions,” Michael said, remembering his trip down into the caisson. “What will happen to the bridge now?”
“It seems he’s married to quite a remarkable woman. Although he’ll be confined to his apartment in Columbia Heights, he will continue to direct operations by observing with field glasses and sending messages to the site through his wife, Emily Warren Roebling,”
“She does sound like a remarkable woman,” Emily agreed.
“I don’t believe in such things,” Michael said, “but with John Roebling dead and now his son paralyzed, it makes me wonder if the bridge is cursed.”
Gaylord shook his head. “You’re not the only one to think that, Michael.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
1871
The Eldridge mansion was completed in May of 1871, on time and under budget. As a result, Michael’s reputation in the building community had become greatly enhanced. The mansion was no longer derisively referred to as “the wasteland.” It was now known throughout the city as the “Marble Palace.”
Now that the mansion was finished it was time to find new work for his company. He made an appointment to see William C. Kingsley, Brooklyn’s leading contractor. Kingsley came with a sterling reputation. He was only thirty-eight, but he’d already built Prospect Park and the Hempstead Reservoir, and now he was the general contractor of the Brooklyn Bridge. Construction on the bridge had begun a year ago, but there was still much to be done and Michael was sure he could find work here.
On a bright, sunny Friday morning in May, Michael hurried down Water Street in Brooklyn and stepped into the offices of Kingsley & Keeney Construction Company. An elderly man with green eye shades sat at a high desk. He looked up at Michael with a questioning look.
“My name is Ranahan, I have an appointment to see Mr. Kingsley.”
“Wait here,” he said, and without another word scurried down a hallway.
A moment later, a man over six feet tall, powerfully built, with broad shoulders and a deep chest came down the hall and stuck out his hand. “Bill Kingsley.”
Michael shook hands. “Michael Ranahan.”
“I know. I know. Your reputation precedes you. Come, let’s talk in my office.
As Michael settled into a comfortable chair in front of Kingsley’s desk, he took a moment to study the big contractor. He had an honest-looking face that was set off by a fine head of wavy dark-red hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Michael liked what he saw.
“So, what can I do for you, Ranahan?”
“I’ve just finished the Eldridge mansion and—”
“I know. I took a ride by it just yesterday. They’re calling it the Marble Palace. You did a fine job of it, Ranahan.
“Thank you. I was wondering if there was a place for my company on your project.”
“Of course there is,” Kingsley said without hesitation. “I have dozens of subcontractors working on the bridge. Unfortunately, I’m forced to let several go a week. Neither I nor Washington Roebling will countenance shoddy workmanship.”
“Mr. Kingsley, I can guarantee that you will see no shoddy work from my men.”
“I know. That’s why I’m hiring you.”
Michael was taken aback by Kingsley’s directness and how quickly they’d come to an arrangement. He’d expected more give and take. “When do we start?”
“Monday morning. Seven sharp.”
Monday morning Michael and his crew arrived and were quickly put to work. Half his men were assigned to haul the tons of stone that would form the bridge. The limestone was quarried at the Clark Quarry in Essex County, New York. The granite blocks were quarried and shaped on Vinalhaven Island, Maine and delivered from Maine to New York by schooner. The other half of Michael’s men were put to work constructing wooden scaffolding for a small army of stone-cutters and masons.
By the time Michael got home from work that first day, it was after eight. Emily had a hot supper waiting.
“So, how did it go?”
“I’m impressed. Although there are hundreds of carpenters, stonemasons, mechanics, and riggers swarming all over the site, the work goes surprisingly well, thanks to Roebling’s disciplined and professional assistant engineers.”
“Do you know any of them?”
“No, but two of them, Francis Collingwood and Charles Martin are graduates of Rensselaer College. Martin is second in command to Mr. Roebling. Another fellow named Wilhelm Hillenbrand has recently migrated from Germany. Each has a specific area of responsibility which makes it easier for subcontractors like me to know who to go to for specific problems and issues.”
“So, do you think you’re going to like working there?”
“I do. Emily, if this bridge gets built, it will be the wonder of the modern world. I’ll be so proud to be a small part of that.”
“It will be something.” Emily put his dinner in front of him and called up the stairs, “Children, come say goodnight to your father.”
Eleanor, Peter, and Claire came running into the kitchen.
“Da, did you go down in the caisson?” Peter asked excitedly.
“No, son. I was down there once and that’s enough for me.”
“I’d like to go down there. Just to see it.”
“It’s a very nasty place for anybody, but especially a young boy.”
“Da, I’m sixteen,” Peter protested.
Emily pushed the hair back from his eyes. “Why don’t you concentrate on being a newspaperman like your Uncle Gaylord?”
“I am. That’s what newspaper men do. They go down into places like that.”
Michael laughed. “You might want to talk to Uncle Gaylord about that.”
“Father, did you climb up on the towers?”
“No, Eleanor, that’s not my job.”
“What do you do?” Claire asked.
“We build scaffolding and transport great big granite and limestone boulders. The granite comes from all the way up in Maine.”
“Enough with the questions,” Emily said. “Let your father eat his supper in peace.”
After he kissed them all good night, they went back upstairs to their bedrooms.
“Where’s Dermot?” Michael asked.
“That boy has got to get a steady job, Emily. He can’t go on—”
Just then, they heard a key in the latch and then footsteps on the stairs.
“Dermot,” Michael called out. “Come here.”
Dermot came into the kitchen. “What?”
“Where were you?”
“Out with my friends.”
Michael studied his son closely. His eyes were bloodshot and he smelled of alcohol. “You’ve been drinking.”
Dermot shrugged. “I had a couple of beers. So what?”
“Judging by the smell of alcohol, I’d say you had more than a couple.”
“I’m twenty years old,” he exploded. “I can drink if I want to.”
Michael felt the anger rising in him. “Where do you get the money? You don’t have a job.”
“I manage.”
Michael pointed a finger at his son. “You will not come into this house drunk again. Do you understand?”
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
Michael slammed his fist on the table. “I can damn well tell you what to do as long as you live in this house.”
Dermot’s face reddened. “Well, I don’t have to live in this goddamn house.”
“Watch your language,” Emily said quietly.
“The both of you are always telling me what to do. I’m sick of it.”
“We only want what’s best for you,” Emily said in a still voice that she hoped would calm her son.
“Then just leave me alone.”
“If you were halfway responsible, we would leave you alone.” Michael waved a hand in dismissal. “You’re drunk and you’re slurring your words. Go to bed. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
“I’m sick and tired of you treating me like a child.”
“Then stop acting like one,” Michael snapped back.
“I don’t have to take this from you!” Dermot screamed, as he headed for the door. “I’m getting the hell out of this house.”
Michael rose to stop him, but Emily grabbed his arm. “No, Michael, let him go. When he cools down, he’ll come home.”
“I’m not so sure of that, Emily. I’m not sure of that at all.”
Emily started every time she heard a key in the latch, hoping that it might be Dermot. But it never was. It had been two weeks since their son had stormed out of the house and they had not heard a word from him. Michael asked Gaylord to check with his sources to see if he could find out where he’d gone. Gaylord reminded Michael that New York was a big city, but he promised to do what he could.
The weeks turned into months and still no word from Dermot. As best they could, the Ranahan family went on with their lives. Emily continued teaching classrooms full of young ladies, although from time to time her mind often drifted from her lesson plan to thinking about where her son might be. Eleanor had gone off to Vassar to pursue a degree in art and literature. Gaylord had gotten Peter a job as an office boy at the Tribune. And Claire continued to immerse herself in her poetry books.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
1872
It was a bitter cold January morning with a biting wind so strong it was whipping up whitecaps in the East River. Michael was supervising the unloading of granite blocks at the New York City-side caisson. As he idly watched his men, he turned his attention to the forty-man work crew coming out of the caisson at the end of their shift. The poor bedraggled devils barely looked human. Their faces were blackened and their eyes were bloodshot. Their trousers and boots were covered with stinking mud. Although it was barely twenty degrees, they were bathed in sweat. Michael was reminded of what the engineer McNulty had told them: “Even on the coldest winter day the temperature down here is in the upper eighties.”
As the exhausted men shuffled off the caisson, Michael’s eyes focused on one young man’s gait and with a start recognized it immediately. “Dermot,” he called out.
Dermot looked over his shoulder, but kept walking.
Michael ran toward him. “Dermot, wait.”
Dermot spun around. “What do you want?”
Up close, Michael was shocked by his son’s appearance. His face was gaunt, his bloodshot eyes were sunken into his face, and his hair was plastered down from sweat. Since Dermot had stormed out of the house eight months ago, Michael had never given up looking for him. Every time he saw a young man around Dermot’s age walking down the street, he’d rush up to him only to find he was mistaken. He rehearsed in his mind exactly what he would say when he did meet his son, but now he couldn’t remember his carefully worded speech.
“How are you?” he blurted out.
“I’m all right.”
“Your mother misses you. I miss you. Your brother and sisters miss you.”
“I gotta go.”
“How long have you been working down there?”
“A few months.”
“My God, Dermot, you could work for me. You wouldn’t have to work in that hellhole.”
Dermot shrugged. “It’s all right.”
Suddenly, his nose started to bleed, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Dermot, your nose is bleeding.”
“Huh? Oh.” He quickly wiped his nose with his dirty sleeve. “It happens all the time down there.”
“Dermot, please don’t go down there anymore.”
Dermot smirked. “Still telling me what to do.”
“Don’t do it for me. Do it for your mother?”
Suddenly, Dermot’s face contorted in pain. With an animal-like groan, he doubled over and fell to the ground writhing in agony.
Several men ran over. “It’s the caisson disease,” one of them whispered knowingly.
Another young fellow knelt beside Dermot. “He’s my roommate. Someone help me get him to our boardinghouse.”
“Where is it?” Michael asked.
“One Thirty Front Street. It’s only a few blocks from here.”
Michael called out to Flynn, whose crew had just finished unloading the wagon. “Flynn, get the wagon over here right now. Fallon, go fetch a doctor and bring him to 130 Front Street. Hurry, man.”
Michael was relieved to hear that his son wasn’t living in the Five Points, but the decrepit boardinghouse on Front Street would not have been out of place in that slum.
They carried Dermot upstairs to the windowless room he shared with his roommate. Michael was appalled at the conditions under which his son lived. The cramped, dark room wasn’t much bigger than a good-sized closet. The only furniture was two cots. They laid him on top of dirty sheets that looked as though they hadn’t been washed in months.
A moment later, Michael heard footsteps on the stairs. The doctor, a middle-aged man in a black frock coat and a stiff white collar, appeared in the doorway.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“It’s the caisson disease,” the young man said.
The doctor looked at him sharply. “Who are you?”
“I’m his roommate, sir. He’s had this before, but not this bad.”
“All right, everybody out while I examine this man.”
“Doctor, I’m his father.”
“Very well, you can stay. Everybody else out.”
The doctor listened to Dermot’s heart with his stethoscope. “He has an irregular pulse and there’s lung congestion. How long has he been like this?”
“I don’t know.”
The doctor gave him a puzzled glance.
“We’ve been alienated for some months now,” Michael explained. “I only just saw him again less than an hour ago.”
“Does he work in the caisson?”
“He does.”
“I thought so. That young fellow was right. He has caisson disease. I’ve treated cases like this before. There’s something about working down there that causes this.”
“What is the cause?”
“No one knows. All I know is that it’s criminal to allow men to work in
those conditions. Washington Roebling himself has been struck down by the disease and now he’s a paralyzed cripple. It’s all madness, trying to build such a massive bridge. I predict the whole enterprise will come tumbling down one day—if they even finish it.”
“Will my son be all right?”
The doctor returned his stethoscope to his bag. “It depends. The disease can manifest itself in excruciating joint pain, paralysis, convulsions, numbness, speech impediments, and—” he turned to look Michael in the eye— “in some cases, death.”
Michael sat down heavily on the adjoining cot. “What can I do for him?”
The doctor looked around the shabby room. “For one thing, get him out of this disease-ridden hovel.”
“I will. I intend to take him home.”
“He needs bed rest, plenty of fluids, and a decent meal. It looks as though he hasn’t had a decent meal in quite a while.”
Flynn helped Michael carry Dermot down to the wagon. As they rode to his house, Michael wondered how he would break the news to Emily. He knew she would be glad to see him, but on the other hand, she would not be happy to see him like this.
When they got to the house, he went in first. Emily was in the parlor. She looked up from her knitting. “You’re home early.” Then she noticed the stricken expression on his face. “My God… is it Dermot? Is… he—”
“He’s not dead, but he’s a very sick young man. He has the caisson disease.”
“Oh, my God. Where is he?”
“In the wagon outside. Prepare his bed. Flynn and I will bring him up.”
Emily let out a cry when she saw her son. She took his hand. “Dermot, it’s your mother. Can you hear me?”
“He’s been going in and out of consciousness,” Michael explained.
Tears welled up in her eyes. “I must clean him up. Get his filthy clothing off. I’ll get hot water and towels.”
To save time, Michael took out his knife and cut away Dermot’s clothing. By the time he was finished, Emily was back with a pail of hot water.
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