by Gordon Ryan
“ . . . ten per caisson, two hours a shift,” he was saying as Tom joined the group. “Three hours topside on the labor crew and then back down for another two in the hole, three topside again, and that’s it for the day. Any questions?”
No one spoke up and Tom held his peace. As the group began to break up, Tom took stride with a couple of the younger men leaving the warehouse yard, listening to their conversation and discerning several dialects.
“Six tomorrow for you, too?” Tom said to one he took to be Irish.
“Aye,” the other replied, continuing his Irish brogue, which Tom had recognized earlier as the more clipped, staccato speech common to Belfast. “And you?”
“Yeah. Any idea what we’ll be doing? I didn’t hear what that fellow said.”
“Working on the pilings on that there bridge,” he said, pointing to the bridge that now spanned the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn. “She’s barely ten years old, the man told us, but some work needs to be done on the pilings. We’re gonna’ have to go down to do it.”
“Go down?” Tom asked.
“Yep. In a tube of some sort—with ten men in it. They pump air into it, and it keeps the water out.”
Tom’s eyes widened. “You done this before?” he asked.
“Nope. But for five bucks a day, I can learn,” he grinned back at Tom.
“Aye, I guess you’d be right. See you then,” Tom added, heading off for the nearest trolley to return to the produce market.
The next morning at a quarter to six, Tom stood waiting outside the warehouse entrance with a small number of men whose names appeared on a roster and who had been allowed inside the gate. The line of new applicants was already formed as it had been the day before, all ages once again represented. Tom had convinced his boss at the produce market to give him a couple of days off for some personal business, not inclined to quit before he knew the job at hand would be permanent. By ten minutes after six, the crew of about forty men were loaded on several horse-drawn wagons and were en route to the construction site, located on the Manhattan side, under the main bridge abutment.
Tom and some others were told that for the first three days, they would be on a topside crew becoming familiar with operations, and then he’d be assigned to a diving crew and begin to work his two shifts a day beneath the river.
By noon of the third day, Tom had heard the stories of men who had been injured or simply quit once they had been assigned to a crew. “Even the guy who built the bloody thing, got crippled as a result,” one man said.
At least two of each new ten-man crew quit after their first two-hour shift underwater, often the result of panic at being confined in the restricted space inside the caisson and beneath the waters of the East River.
Tom’s first assignment was to work on a platform suspended beneath the main bridge, about fifteen feet above the water line. Some of the men on his crew managed the air lines, suspension cables, and the compressor unit and mechanical equipment used to support the submerged caissons. Tom was given a job mixing the mortar being used to strengthen the bridge pilings. By the afternoon of the third day, eight men who had been hired a couple of days earlier, had already quit or been fired. Tom began to doubt the wisdom of hiring on and dreaded the fourth day when he was scheduled to be assigned to a diving crew.
Halfway through the afternoon shift, and without warning, a whistle began to blow. Men were shouting. Something drastic seemed to have occurred. Tom looked over the side of his platform, and saw great bubbles of air rising to the surface of the river. One of the foremen was yelling for the topside crew to keep the compressor going and directing others to get below and lend a hand. Tom stood looking on, confused as to exactly what was happening, but witnessing a disaster in progress.
Just below the water line, Tom could see a rupture in the caisson, which had protected the men from the pressure of the river depths. A few of the men had scrambled out of the caisson and were now lying prostrate on the platform. Two of the men were convulsing violently, their bodies jerking involuntarily.
“They got bent for sure,” one of Tom’s work mates said, leaning over the ropes next to Tom and observing the scene below. Some other men emerged from the ruptured caisson, and those who were able, quickly cleared the platform, gaining the relative safety of the ladders running from the base of the bridge abutment to the upper support platform where Tom stood. As the first of these men reached Tom’s level, a foreman grabbed the wild-eyed man.
“What happened down there?”
“I dunno. We just lost air. I thought we’d never get up.” He was disoriented and nearly incoherent.
“Who else is missing?”
Tom could see the man was in shock and unable to reason. Looking back down toward the diving platform, Tom saw one of the men, who was having a seizure, struggling to get to his feet. He had no equilibrium and stumbled about on the platform. Suddenly, the stricken man flopped over the side into the river and disappeared into the dark water. Shouts rose again from the men on the upper tier, who were also watching the scene below. Without thinking, Tom immediately jumped off the support platform, landing in the river alongside the diving platform. The cold water momentarily took his breath away, but as soon as he surfaced, he took a great gulp of air and dove again below the surface.
The murky water afforded no view of the man, and after groping about blindly for a few moments, Tom came up again for more air. Then, taking a deep breath, he submerged again and by feel, descended the cables toward the river bottom, clinging tightly against the current of the river. About fifteen feet down, he brushed against something that moved. Tom reached out and felt an arm, which he grasped tightly and pulled toward him. The man was entangled in the cables, but changing his grip, Tom was able to grab the man by his belt and begin struggling up the cable, pulling with one hand toward the surface and dragging the limp body with him. He needed desperately to take a breath of air, and just when he thought he couldn’t live another moment without breathing, he broke the surface.
Three men who had descended to the lower platform reached out for Tom, calling to him to swim toward the platform. Tom pushed the now unconscious man ahead of him, toward the waiting hands, but he lacked the strength to pull himself up. The men pulled the injured worker aboard as Tom struggled to tread water. Flailing about in the current, the exhausted Irishman passed out and the light slowly disappeared before his eyes.
The next several minutes were lost to Tom, but as he gradually regained consciousness, he saw he was ashore, lying beneath the main bridge abutment, and heard the foreman talking to him.
“Ah, you’re coming around, lad.”
“Is he all right?” Tom asked.
“Tony? Yeah, thanks to you, young man, he’s alive, but he and Sean got bit by the bends. They’re both on the way to the hospital.”
“What happened?” Tom asked.
“Don’t worry about it, lad. It’s over now. You just rest for a while.”
“The other men?” Tom asked, grabbing the foreman’s shirt.
“We lost two good men, lad, and two more have the bends. But, if it hadn’t been for you, we’d have lost Tony, too. It’s a good day’s work, lad. Just take it easy.”
As Tom leaned back against the stone pillar, someone handed him a tin cup full of hot coffee. It warmed both his hands and his insides.
By the end of his shift, Tom was back to feeling normal, and as he rode the trolley to his evening job, he had time to contemplate the day’s events. More concerned than ever about the safety of going down in the caisson, Tom found himself unsure about the job he’d taken and the merits of taking such risks, even for five dollars a day.
After his four-hour shift, spent cleaning trolleys, Tom decided to stop for a drink. On the street between St. Timothy’s and Clancy’s Pub, he crossed paths with Father O’Leary.
“Which direction you headed, lad?” O’Leary asked. Tired and as yet unsettled as to what he was going to do about going bac
k down in the caisson, Tom was caught somewhat off guard by the smiling prelate.
“Well, Father, I thought I might grab a pint and head home early this evening.”
“You all right, lad? You look a bit shaky.”
“It’s been an interesting day, Father.”
“Mr. Callahan, what say we amble down to the rectory? I’ve got a bottle of malt liquor and you look like you could do with a stout drink.”
Too tired to protest, Tom followed after Father O’Leary. Once they were inside O’Leary’s living quarters, he offered Tom a seat, which the weary Irishman gratefully accepted, along with the glass of beer the father handed him.
“There you go, lad. Maybe we can carry on the palaver I mentioned the other night. But first, you just lay back there and rest for a few moments. I’ll attend to another matter and be back shortly.”
Tom drained his glass, then leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes, and the image of the workman falling into the water played again through his mind. Father O’Leary found him asleep when he returned, and, laying a blanket over the young Irishman, the kindly priest picked up the empty glass that had slipped from Tom’s hand and set it on the sideboard.
Waking to the aroma of sausage cooking, Tom opened his eyes, unsure for a few moments where he was.
“Back from the dead, I see,” Father O’Leary said.
Tom tossed back the blanket and got stiffly to his feet. Cramped from sleeping all night in the chair, he stretched and yawned.
“Never seen an Irishman go out like a light from just one glass of malt liquor,” O’Leary taunted.
“What time is it?” Tom asked, suddenly anxious.
“Just after seven,” O’Leary replied.
Tom shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. Then, taking a deep breath and holding it momentarily, he said, “Well, there goes one good job. But, on second thought, maybe it’s all for the best. Smells good, Father. Taking in boarders, are you?”
“The occasional meal, lad, when justified. Here, sit at the end and I’ll show you a good old fashioned Irish breakfast, bangers and all.” O’Leary piled Tom’s plate high with sausage, fried potatoes, and scrambled eggs and filled their cups with steaming hot coffee.
“Now that’s a breakfast,” Tom declared as Father O’Leary filled his own plate and sat down across the table.
“By the time we have breakfast together, most call me ‘P. J.’ Patrick James, as me mother said in the old country.”
“Umm,” Tom mumbled, his mouth full of potatoes. “Suppose I stick to ‘Father’ P. J., just so’s I know my place,” Tom grinned, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Well and good, lad. Well and good. So, what’s this job you think you just lost?”
“A job working on a bridge repair crew, Father. I signed on three days ago, and since then I’ve had misgivings. I saw two men killed yesterday, and even before that several good men have quit or been laid off. It was my turn to go under the water today. I guess the foreman will think I’m a bit afraid when I don’t show.”
“Are you, Tom?”
Tom looked up, filling his mouth again with sausage. “Might be, Father. I never got the chance to find out, what with the accident and all yesterday.”
O’Leary pushed his plate aside and refilled both their coffee cups. Placing his elbows on the table and holding the coffee mug in between his cupped hands, he said, “I read something about that in the morning papers. Were you involved?”
“Ummm,” Tom mumbled, working his way through the eggs.
“Aye,” O’Leary said, his eyes brightening. “You’d be the ‘Tom’ the story said pulled the other Irishman out of the river. If your job’s gone, lad, and you’ve got some time on your hands, maybe it’s time for the conversation I spoke about.”
“I’ve still got work, Father, both morning and evening, but it’ll never pay enough to get me to . . .” Tom paused, not sure how much of his inner thoughts to reveal.
“She’s somewhere else, is she?” O’Leary asked, smiling.
Tom grinned in spite of himself. “Ya got this uncanny knack, Father, of looking into a man’s soul.”
“That’s me business, Tom, and I been at it for over forty years now. I’ve helped many a young lad set himself straight once he arrived here in the States, and some, as I mentioned the other night, I lost along the way.”
It was Tom’s turn to counsel. “You can’t save ’em all, Father. Some of us are just dead set on our own path.”
“I know you’re right, lad, but like I said, that’s my job. And my joy, I might add. You’d be surprised how alike people are once you get inside ’em and get ’em to open up. Now tell me about this lass and how you come to be so set on finding her.”
“Ever heard of Utah, Father?”
Two hours later, Father “P. J.” O’Leary knew everything worth knowing about Thomas Matthew Callahan and had found himself liking the boy. O’Leary’s warning counsel about Utah didn’t surprise Tom. He had already heard stories about the wild doings among the Mormons—that they were a group of religious zealots that had adopted the Old Testament practice of plural marriage. One of the other boarders where Tom lived had told some particularly lurid tales about old Mormon men taking young wives, and Tom had been worried about Katrina. But to be fair, Father O’Leary said that it was his understanding that Mormon church leaders had for the last several years, officially decried the practice of plural marriage. The priest explained that there had been a national debate on the matter, and that Utah had thus far been denied statehood over the issue.
Tom’s determination, however, had convinced O’Leary that the lad intended to make it to Utah, and so Father P. J., also a determined Irishman, advised Tom that the easiest way to go west would be on the railroad. And if one couldn’t afford passage, then riding the rails as a paid employee was the next best thing. He offered to introduce Tom to a parishioner who worked for the New York, Baltimore, & Ohio Railroad. Mr. Donohue, Father O’Leary advised, was a fair man, and would likely do what he could to help Tom get on in some capacity.
By three o’clock that afternoon, cap in hand once again, Tom Callahan had been hired as an apprentice oilier for the New York, Baltimore, & Ohio Railroad. The company was headquartered across the New York harbor in Bayonne, New Jersey, where Tom was to be provided living quarters near the switchyard, to facilitate his availability.
Convinced now of Father O’Leary’s concern, and grateful to him for his help, Tom expressed appreciation to the kindly priest. As they said good-bye, Father O’Leary handed Tom a letter of introduction addressed to Sister Mary Theophane, the head nursing sister and chief administrator of Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City. Father O’Leary explained that he and Sister Theophane had known each other in Ireland and had come to the United States at about the same time, many years before. He thought she might be of some assistance to Tom in Salt Lake City and wished to be remembered to her if Tom succeeded in getting to Utah.
Following a quick visit to the Stanicich Construction Company to pick up his three days’ wages, grudgingly authorized by the crew foreman, in consideration of Tom’s heroic action, Tom found himself later that same day in small, but clean quarters, a half-mile from the railroad switchyard in Bayonne.
In America for three months, with not quite six months left on his promise to find Katrina Hansen, Thomas Callahan had moved exactly seventeen miles west from his point of entry in New York City. One thousand, nine hundred and eighty-three miles remained.
6
26 June 1895
Dear Nana,
What a wonderful place Salt Lake City is, Nana. To the west is barren desert, but the mountains surround the valley and when Poppa took us on a buggy ride up into Cottonwood Canyon, it reminded me of our country cottage and the beautiful hills of Norway. You would like it too, Nana. It is not like Horten, and we are far from the sea, but it is so beautiful.
Next month the city holds a Pioneer Day celebration to remem
ber those who first came. It has been forty-eight years since they arrived. I laugh when I tell some of my friends at school that we have churches in Norway that are over one thousand years old.
People are here from all over Europe, but mostly from the British Isles. I will like it here, Nana.
Jeg elske du,
Trina
In Salt Lake City for nearly two months, Lars Hansen had purchased a house six blocks south and four blocks east of Temple Square. A city of 75,000 people, Salt Lake had, in nearly fifty years, become an important economic hub and the literal crossroads of western America. When, in 1869, the transcontinental railroad had linked up and the rail line had been extended into Ogden, Utah, just twenty-five miles north of Salt Lake City, the nation had not only completed its union, but Utah had been linked to the rest of the nation.
With Denver on the eastern slopes and Salt Lake City framing the western edge, the Rocky Mountains stretched for over four hundred miles east to west between the two cities. Many cities and towns had been established in the beautiful valleys and high meadows that were nestled in the Rockies, and during the intervening five decades since the earliest pioneers had blazed trails through the high mountain passes, easier routes had been found, roads had been built, and the trek to Utah no longer presented a hazardous undertaking. Still in all, it hadn’t come easy.
It wasn’t until the Hansens arrived in Utah and learned the full story of the settlement of the Valley, that they became aware of the magnitude of the exodus, unparalleled in history, that had brought the early Mormon pioneers west. In the course of their learning about Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel, Lars Hansen and his family had understood the importance of young Joseph’s spiritual message, but remained ignorant of the political repercussions of the westward movement, and how the settlement of Utah related to American history. As much as the gospel had encompassed their lives, the founding of Salt Lake City was not part of their heritage, other than viewing it as a refuge that provided them the liberty to practice their religion.