At the time of the illustrations in this exhibit, John Eichleay Jr. Co. was located at South 20th and Wharton Streets on Pittsburgh's South Side. Today--1996--The Eichleay Companies are headquartered at Fifth and Penn Avenues, in Pittsburgh's Point Breeze.
From Scientific American, 12 December 1903.
There have been some remarkable feats of house
moving chronicled from time to time in the columns of the Scientific
American; but surely the one of which we here present illustrations,
in which a fine old mansion was lifted 160 feet from the banks of the
Monongahela to the summit of the cliffs
above, is the most remarkable of
them all. The building, which is known as the Brown mansion, has stood
for several generations at the foot of the lofty and precipitous cliffs
which line the river at this point. It was built by a Capt. William
Brown, father of the present owner, and has been a landmark at Brown's
Station on the Baltimore & Ohio Railway for many years. Among the
many improvements of their track which are being carried out by the
Baltimore & Ohio Railway Company is the straightening out of their
line, by the elimination of the sharper curves, especially on those
portions of the line which follow the windings of the river. At Brown's
Station, where this house was located, the railway company required for
improvement purposes the ground on which the building stood; and when
the site had been sold to the company, the question arose as to what
disposition should be made of the old mansion. At the top of the cliff,
160 feet above the former site of the house, is a fine stretch of
orchard land belonging to the present owners of the house, and largely
from sentimental reasons, it was decided to move the building up the
face of the cliff and place it on this elevated site, which commands a
fine view of the river and the surrounding country. The difficulty of
the task will be understood when it is stated that the building measures
85 feet by 40 feet, and weighs about 800 tons. The first operation was
to insert eight large timbers, measuring 12 inches by 16 inches, and 85
feet in length, beneath the building, while between these and the
structure were laid about 200 7-inch steel needle-beams. While this was
going on, the face of the cliff was stepped out into four benches of
about 30-foot lift each. The building was then raised a little at a time
by hand jacks, and the eight walls of timber cribwork built up beneath
it. The blocking was all carefully sized to 6 inches by 8 inches. The
cribwork was stiffened in both directions by means of 8 x 8-inch waling
pieces, and it was sway-braced by half-inch chains with turnbuckles.
When the house had been lifted 30 feet, it was drawn onto the first
bench by means of two winches on the top of the cliff, each driven by two
horses, a 2-inch line with four-part blocks being used. Another lift of
30 feet was then made to the next bench, and the various operations
were repeated, until the house was landed on its new site, 200 feet back
from the old site and 160 feet above it. As may well be imagined, a vast
amount of timber was required for this work, amounting in all to 20,000
carefully-sized sticks, which required twenty cars to transport them.
The actual cost of this house moving is not given out, but it is well
understood that it considerably exceeds the original cost of the house
itself. We are indebted for our illustrations and particulars to Messrs.
John Eichleay, Jr., Company, the contractors for this unique piece of
engineering work.
