THE REMINISCENCES OF KENNETH MARKLAND
PORT WASHINGTON COMMUNITY ORAL
HISTORY PROGRAM
PORT WASHINGTON
PUBLIC LIBRARY
THE REMINISCENCES OF
Kenneth Markland
PREFACE
The following interview is one of a series of tape recorded memoirs
in the Port Washington Public Library Community Oral History Program.
This series was developed in order to systematically gather historical
information about the important themes in Port Washington's history
from before the turn of the century until the present time.
This interview focuses on sandmining in Port Washington, and was part of a New York Council for the Humanities Project, "Sands of Port", conducted by the Public Library in 1981/2.
This interview took place in Port Washington during 1981 between Kenneth Markland and Elly Shodell, Project Director.
The reader is asked to bear in mind that he is reading a transcript
of the spoken, rather than the written word. Editorial corrections have
been inserted by hand to help preserve the authenticity of the verbatim
transcript. Permission to quote for publication must be obtained from
the Port Washington Public Library or from the oral authors, their heirs,
or forebears.
Elly Shodell
Oral History Program Director
Port Washington Public LIbrary
(c)PORT WASHINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
Kenneth B. Markland(KM) interviewed by Elly Shodell(ES), December 31, 1981
ES: Mr. Markland, I'm very glad you cooperated in speaking with us today. I'm Mrs. Shodell from the Port Library.
KM: It's nice to know you, Mrs. Shodell.
ES: Excellent knowing you as well. I wanted to ask you, Mr. Markland, what do you think of when you hear somebody talking about the sandbanks?
KM: Well, there's not many people left that can talk about them. See, I'm 72 years old and I've had alot of experience, I went down when I was a boy. Would you like me to tell the stories about it?
Q: Very much so.
KM: All right. They made serials down there in the old time movies, The Perils of Pauline.[1947] They built alot of shacks on the water ana with the tide come in and she was supposed to be drowning, all this stuff. Then they made the Great Flood down there, just old, ordinary picture, years and years ago, about forty, fifty years ago. And then, first they started off with locomotives, little locomotives, and they were cute, and my brother ran one of the locomotives, and they would put the sand on and bring it down to the docks. And then they invented that belt and away went the locomotives. Then away went the locomotives, then come a little electric train, and that was the last. And many years ago all the Italians came from Italy, had an old shack down there, a bunch of old shacks, and there was an old grocery store down there. They never come uptown but they brought them over from Italy and they worked on the sandbank, and they made their living there, for years and years. And some of the Port Washington people made their living there, because in my father's day there was nothing but sandbanks and estates and clamming.. He told me lots of times, that's all there was here. And people here went away for the winters, nobody lived out here in the winters, they went away for the winter and came back in the summer. This was sort of a residence.
ES: I'd like to hear some more about your brother, since he actually worked at the sandbank. Could you tell us his full name and what company he worked for?
KM: Gallagher. His name was Alfred Markland, and he lived to be 55 and he died of a heart attack.
ES: This is your brother? His name wasn't Markland?
KM: Yes, Alfred Markland, Alfred Markland, yeah.
ES: And how did he come to work for Gallagher?
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KM: I don't know, everybody in the young days were down there. That was the only thing around here, there was nothing but estates and fishing and things like that, there was no other income around here, because everybody in the winter time left the Island, it was dead. Just clamdiggers were here. This goes pretty far back. See, I'm 72 now.
ES: And Alfred worked the sandbanks right here on Manhasset Isle?
KM: Oh no, right down there on Bar Beach. This was never sand banks, this is just washed all off about thirty years ago with a big force of water and then come the real estate, 1920 some thing, then come these little buildings up. Right here, Manhasset Isle, was nothing but sand and little houses for boy scouts and things like that and people come to the island for the summer, come out here, it was beautiful.
ES: Where were you living at the time that he worked the sandbank?
KM: I was living at 15 Main Street, I was a little boy. My father owned a big, old house there.
ES: Were you a younger brother?
KM: Yes, yeah.
ES: And do you remember stories that your
brother told you
about work at the sandbanks?
KM: Yeah, he said he seen a man get chopped
up in a little
motor (?) one day, we wouldn't want to talk about that.
ES: Yes, we'd like to hear it.
KM: It ran right over the poor guy, a little Italian, yeah. Yeah, he told about that.
ES: How long did he work with Gallagher? Your brother?
KM: Quite a while, I think quite a while, and then he was driving a truck for them, driving some kind of a dump cart for them, I don't know what it is. I remember that. He showed me how the gears worked, there was three gears in this old truck, it went in and out like that. It was a funny thing, yeah.
ES: You visited him at work?
KM: Oh yes, I'd been there about two or three times, yeah. And in the younger days we used to go down in the swimming pools, you know. The sandbanks used to dig big holes and it was full of water and us kids used to go down and swim in that water it was beautiful. Of course, they chased you if they found you, but it was beautiful. It was a whole lot water, you know, where they
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KM: dug out. Of course, it was near the bay, you know what I mean? And that was our swimming pool, yeah.
ES: And were you able to see the men working from your swimming pool?
KM: No, no, oh yes, sure, no, no that already had been dug out and then they went over further. No, they chased you out of there, you couldn't...
ES: I'm interested in how you felt as a little boy going to visit your brother working there. Was it scary to see all that big equipment? How did you feel when you went over there?
KM: No, only little locomotives, nothing like the trains, just the little fellas and they used to chug chug chug and pull ten cars or eight, nine cars, of sand over the road, down to the shore and then they'd load on the scows. Then, of course, the belt came in. Then that went overhead and after awhile the belt went underneath... No, wait a minute, the electric trains come, then the belt came. Then that was the end of the... Then they disappeared about ten, fifteen years ago, the whole sand banks all gone. You know how it is down there now, all built up beautiful.
ES: What do you think about what is being done there now?
KM: Well, in my days if you went down with a camera you'd think you was out west, you know, hills all the way up like that and there's dug 'em down like that. It was a nice scene. Now they got houses way up on the hill. They have houses down there, if you go down there sometime, do you see what it's like, like that? Well, some day there's gonna be an awful storm and all those houses are gonna slide right down that mountain. It's way, way up you've seen it, haven't you, as you go down Bar Beach? They have boards like that to keep the earth from going down but someday...well, it'll be something, I'm afraid.
ES: Yeah. Did you ever want to work in the sandbanks like your brother?
KM: I was a baby, a little kid, about eight years old, nine years old, you know. No, no.
ES: That was never one of your ambitions?
KM: No, all that disappeared, it didn't disappear but people got out of the work, you know. This goes way back when I was a little kid.
ES: Can you give the approximate years that he worked there?
KM: In the '20s, it must have been in the '20s, yeah. He got married and had five children. Then he got to, after he got to a railroad man, yeah. And we had a man in town here for many a year, he had one leg. He had lost his leg in the sandbanks.
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KM: His name was Mike. He died about ten
years ago. We knew
him very well a nice man, a train went over him, went over his leg,
yeah.
ES: Were there any other members of your family who worked in the sandbanks?
KM: No, my father never worked in the sandbanks. He started as a railroad man and he worked there for fifty years and retired and lived ten years after and had a beautiful retirement and all of that.
ES: When you say he was a railroad man what does that mean?
KM: He was a conductor on the Long Island Railroad, for fifty years. Yeah, I got his picture up there, he was a fine looking man, yeah...
ES:, I'd like to see that.
KM: ... loved by everybody.
ES: What was his name?
KM: Alf (?) Markland. There he is, there, just dirty but there he is.
ES: Very handsome.
KM: He was still in the railroad then,
he was six feet something,
a big man, nice, everybody loved him, always smiling. A very nice man.
ES: What year did he die?
KM: About fifteen years ago.
ES: Was he happy about your brother working in the sandbanks?
KM: Yeah, because that was a pretty good income runnin' the little locomotives there.
ES: Do you remember how much he made?
KM: No, I've no idea, no, I've no idea.
ES: And what about friends, did he have friends who worked at the sandbanks?
KM: Yeah, but I never knew them, I never knew the friends. I only went down two or three times and he showed me the locomotives. Yeah, it was interesting. Then along come the electric trains and next come the belt. Then it wasn't so interesting, it was alright. And they found many an Indian skull down there when they first started years and years ago, pottery and different
page 5
KM:... things they dug up was found in the sandbanks, yeah.
ES: What did it feel like when you were down there?
KM: It was a noisy thing, always made chk,
chk, chk, chk,
going across the asphalt road, it was only two lane down there then.
It was interesting. They made movies down there. They made "The
Perils of Pauline" and they made "The Great Flood". See,
what they did, they built alot of front houses, you know how they do
in Hollywood, just fronts, when the tide was way out. Then when the
tide was coming in and the waves were comin' in and they had some kind
of a fan on it and it looked like the houses were flooded and all that
stuff.
ES: You observed this yourself when you were a little boy?
KM: No, my brother told me about that. "The Perils of Pauline" and "The Great Flood", that's all I remember:
ES: I also heard "The Rose of the World", with Elsie Ferguson?
KM: Only made serials, but serials. They had them run up the sandbanks with ladders, you know, up on the trestle up there, and had people act in all them crazy things, silly you know. Yeah, movies were only about 25 cents then, 15 cents, I guess.
ES: Do you know what happened to the sand after they took it from the banks? Where the sand went?
KM: They went on the scows up all over.
ES: Can you tell us where?
KM: Upstate in New York, all around. Of course, there was big industry there, very big industry.
ES: Do you know what the sand sold for in those days?
KM: I have no idea.
ES: I heard it was something like a penny a gallon or something.
KM: Then we had the gravel companies, too. That's still going down there. That and one sandbank is still going down there. We had a man named Mr. Mosher, he his son did, he was the boss of Gallagher, I think it was, . Ga1lagher's Sand and Gravel. I think it's Gallagher.
ES: How do you spell that name?
KM: M o s h e r.
ES: And you don't know if he's still around?
KM: Oh no, they're both dead. His father died about twenty
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KM: years ago, and he was with me, he died of cancer. He was a lovely guy.
ES: So you knew him after he worked at Gallagher's or while he was there?
KM: Oh, while he was even working there, he was head boss there and he had a house on Shore Road. There was three big houses up on Shore Road, alot of people lived in the big, seven room houses up there. And then they had some other houses over there. The most interesting part was the Italian shacks down off the road, all old, scrubby little things. They lived there, they never bothered coming up town. They had a store down there, I forget the name of the store, and they went to the store and that was it, that was their life. But this goes way back. And then they cut them all down and they all disappeared, all gone, just the memory of them.
ES: What about the big houses such as Mosher lived in, are they still here?
KM: No, that was all cut away, all gone, all ripped down, when the sandbanks went up there and cut right through it.
ES: How do you feel about that?
KM: Well, I spent many a night there with my friend and his mother and them, it was very interesting. Had a little Model-T Ford and I used to go down over Beacon Hill and go there and go to the beach. Had a little private beach down there, it was nice.
ES: So you're sad to see all that gone?
KM: Yeah, I do, it was very picturesque, very beautiful, in its olden days. It looked like the West where they dug down and they had the hills come up like that, and up and down, up and down. Now it's all big real estate now, right.
ES: Do you feel bad that the houses are gone?
KM: Yes, because it was really country, real country down there. It was only an ashphalt road of two lanes way back, just two lane ashphalt [sic] road, and the hill went right down, like that. A big change, yeah. Then we have the big disintegrater [sic]down there, the what-do-you-call-it.
ES: Oh, the incinerator.
KM: The incinerator, yeah, that burns the garbage up, there on the other side of it, the other's on the right.
ES: Do you remember any sandbanks on this side of town?
KM: Yes, right up here where the W.E.F.
Towers was, back, do
you remember the W.E.F. .Towers? No, you don't remember that.
page 7
ES: I thought N.B.C. towers was up...
KM: W.E.F., cause I worked for a radio man for many a year and we had to have a little gadget put on every set so we could get the other stations because that was so powerful W.E.F. station, that it would overcome our whole radio.
ES: Where, exactly, was that tower?
KM: You know where King Kullens is, well,
where that new development is, those buildings there, the new apartments,
well you looked right up. It was just a big hill and way, way, way up
was W.E.F. towers. I was in there when my oId boss was cleaning the
machinery and everything. It was interesting, yeah. He lived to be 91
years old. I worked for him for twenty years. I was with radio.
ES: What did you do?
KM: Radio, the beginning of radio, from battery sets up. I used to deliver them, put them in houses, and in the end it was television.
ES: Do you remember the, getting back to the sandbanks, the trestles that were over Shore Road in the thirties?
KM: Oh, they were allover the top, towards the end of that what do you call it? It's a belt, a big belt, going over the top.
ES: Conveyer belt?
KM: Conveyer belt. And I think later on, I didn't take much interest in it, but I think they went underneath later on. And all these big, wooden scaffolds way up in the air and went way, way down, down to the scows and dumped it on the scows.
ES: Do you remember what companies were working on this side of town?
KM: It was Gallagher and O'Brien and I don't know, different ones, I don't remember any more. I guess so, one of them, I don't know. Names didn't bother that time.
ES: Did you know many people who worked in the sandbanks who lived near you?
KM: No, no, only my brother, no. Oh sure, but they're dead and gone. Alot of men of Port Washington worked there but I didn't know them, really, really. I knew my brother was there, though.
ES: Are there any pictures that you have of your brother
page 8
ES: working in the sandbanks?
KM: Oh, no, I was too little. And then, later on, I got big but the locomotives disappeared and then come the electric train. And they laid on the side there for years, the old electric trains, off the track, lay there. In the Second World War I think they got all that metal, took it all up. 1945 they got all that scrap.
ES: Have you seen the barges lying in Hempstead Harbor?
KM: Oh yes.
ES: What do you think every time you pass by them?
KM: Well, they had a big fire not too long ago, tried to burn them up, didn't they? They've been there over fifty, sixty, seventy years, I think.
ES: What do you think of when you see them?
KM: Well, I thought, why couldn't they get rid of those things. If that was direct (?) cleared out the boats could go right through without any trouble. But now it's worse than ever. I think they burnt down to the water line, didn't they? Yeah, that was a month or two ago, or two months ago?
ES: It was about two months ago, yes.
KM: They let it burn but it made it worse than ever. You can't see it now. In high tide you'll rip your boat apart.
ES: But you remember the days when the barges were going and full of sand?
KM: Oh, yes. And those other barges were there that weren't any good any more, they left them there to rot, just to get rid of, yeah. Didn't burn them out, disintegrate them or nothing, just lay them there to rot.
ES: Do you think it's important for people to know about the history of the sandbanks and what was once there?
KM: In our day, in a way, yes, but today's generation, you know what it is. They don't give a Goddarn for anything. Yeah, that was the life's living here. That and the estates and fishing, that's all the income that was in this town here.
ES: What about the fact that Italians and Polish people worked in the sandbanks? Did that make any sort of problems with the native Port Washingtonians?
KM: No, no, they stayed down there, they had the store down there. They brought them over from Italy, and they got 'em for a song, they worked for a song.
page 9
ES: What about in terms of getting jobs, wasn't it harder for somebody who already lived in Port Washington to get a job at the sandbanks?
KM: Well, I'm going way back now, that was the only income. Oh, later on there was everything that came along, you know, later on.
ES: I mean, was it easy to get a job even though all the Italians and the Polish were being brought in to work the banks?
KM: That's a question, that is a question, but they didn't bother us. You know, there were Polish, Italians and Portuguese, and everything in those days.
ES: I heard Nova Scotian, as well.
KM: Yeah, I can see the shacks now, all tin things lived into. They just died and et [sic] there and they lived there and had their grocery, I forget the name of the grocery store, but I know the grocery store is gone, but the school is still there.
ES: Where is the school?
KM: Just as you get down to the bottom of the hill you see it on the right. It's no more school but they made something else into it, they did something else. It's now a house, I think. I don't know. Apartments, I don't know what they did.
ES: Do you remember the Gallagher house that was in the banks?
KM: Oh God, do I remember the Gallagher house. Towards the end they went into some kind of big, electronic tapes in there. They got wery modern, I mean it was some kind of big industry, you know big, electronic tapes. Nothing to do with Gallagher, they had some kind of big machines, computers? That was how many years ago, I don't remember now. I had delivered, maybe ten years ago, I was in Port Litho, I was building for a printer, and I delivered literature there, and I seen all this equipment there.
ES: What did the house look like from the outside, can you describe it?
KM: Beautiful, big porch and big house, big doors, all that stuff. It was a mansion. Now they got up there is all those benches for people to sit around, you know, all those benches. I don't know whether they had a fire there or not, I'm not too sure.
ES: I heard it was demolished.
KM: Yeah, I think it was demolished. There was nothing wrong with it but they demolished it, for the new park down there, for Bar Beach.
page 10
ES:Do you remember the hermit who lived down by the sand pits?
KM: No, I never mingled with 'em, I could just go see 'em as you go down Shore Road on the right.
ES: Yeah, but you do remember there being hermits? A few...
KM: Oh, they come from Italy, they brought 'em over from Italy and they worked there. This goes pretty far back now, when I was a little baby.
ES: Do you remember having seen the shacks, and when was the last time?
KM: Oh, the shacks were there about twenty-five years ago or more, or thirty years ago, I think.
ES: They were still there?
KM: Oh, yeah, yeah. Just where the hill goes up, you know where the hill goes up, you know all those houses on top there? Well, right down below there was all shacks along like that. And was supposed to keep that. But that hill worries me, if you've ever noticed it.
ES: I know, the erosion...
KM: If it ever gets slanty coming down, you know what I mean? They have big planks there like that, but in a big storm...we'll find out some day. More than one person's talking about that. Have you ever noticed it?
ES: Oh, yes, the erosion, it's going to be tremendous.
KM: It's too near the edge up there, too near the edge.
ES: Yes. Whose responsibility do you think it would be if anything did happen to these houses?
KM: I don't know. It'd be a landslide, a heavy storm'd make it sort of a landslide. I don't know whose responsibility it'd be.
ES: How was the sandpits different from beach at the seashore?
KM: The seashore was a mess, it was nothing but stones on all of Bar Beach. It was terrible, nothing but stones and those little stones.
ES: The sand at the sandpits was better sand.
KM: Oh yeah, but they never bothered with
that. It was an old pavilion there, you undressed and everything, you
know what I
page 11
KM: mean. It was terrible, just a little stones all around.
ES: Do you remember how many hours a day your brother worked?
KM: No, that I do not.
ES: Or whether working there affected his health at all or if he had complaints about the working conditions?
KM: No, he was driving that locomotive a long time. I don't know, it didn't seem to bother him. Then he got into the rail- road in later years, oh my God, later years, way later years. Then he was a plumber before that and all these different things. My father got him in, you know, in the railroad. Then he went to the subway, then he owed a debt and then they fired him. They had five kids.
ES: What did you think about when you heard that the library was doing a program about the sandpits?
KM: Well, I was interested because it's old history about Port Washington, Those things are gone and people like to know what's just what. It was nice to know those things, yeah.
ES: Can I get a few dates from you, if you remember these at all, just to clarify the dates again?
KM: It was in the twenties, it was in the twenties that they still had the locomotives.
ES: Right, but in terms of your family, was your father born in Port Washington?
KM: Born in Port Washington, yes. Lived to be 86 years old.
ES: He would have been eighty-six years old?
KM: He lived to be that.
ES: Oh, he lived to be eighty-six. And he died about fifteen years ago?
KM: Yeah, yeah.
ES: And was his father born in Port Washington?
KM: Yes, Markland, yeah.
ES: What am going to do is write down some of these facts, because this might be easier. Would you consider yourself a clamdigger family?
KM: Yes, Moses, Marcos and...and...what's his name, that lawyer? He wasn't much of a lawyer, but he's in Florida now. What was his name? They all go back.
ES: Oh, Mackey? The Mackeys? :
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KM: No, Mackey. goes back all right here (?), Mackey and Hults' all the Hults'.
ES: Yes, Bert and Cliff.
KM: Yes, Hults and Moses, Markles (?).
ES: What about Reese? Do you remember Reese?
KM: No, I don't know about Reese, no, I don't remember him.
ES: Fenton?
KM: No.
ES: How would you define a "clamdigger?"
KM: That was a livin', to sell clams, sold it to Louie Zwerlein, you know, and sold to the restaurants and sold it to people that wanted them.
ES: Was that a bigger industry than the sand industry?
KM: Oh no, no. In the beginning, yes, way back in the beginning that was it there, that was too far beyond me, too far.
ES: It's true, there's a whole history there
waiting to be uncovered.
KM: There was no trouble,and no fights or
nothin? there, they never had any fights down there or nothin'. If it
did we never heard nothin' about it. You know, most of the foreigners,
you know.
ES: What about the strikes, do you remember hearing about strikes?
KM: I don't think they had strikes in those days, way back in the twenties. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, I don't know. I was too young to care about strikes.
ES: What if you had worked in the sandbanks?
KM: I was too little.
ES: But the sandbanks are still in operation. There are alot of men in Port Washington who, even today, work there.
KM: Yeah, but it's different now. You're driving no more trains, you're in an office now today and everything else. No, I don't think you'd get a job what's left there. It's only two left there down there, right? Two, that's all. I used to go there and deliver blueprints. I worked for Port Litho, you know, and I worked there for twenty years, drove a truck all around the Island.
page 13
ES: What kind of blueprints did you deliver?
KM: Plans of the trestles and all that things. Well, you know, we'd go and we'd make a blueprint for them. You know, they'd write these down and then we'd have to make a blueprint and give them the blueprints.
Q:Who was drawing the blueprints at Port Litho? Oh, they drew them and then...
KM: They drew them and then we made the blueprint out of them. Then we went into a press, a regular press, towards the end, and then Port Litho would make literature for buildings and everything, for business people, literature, big literature by the tons there.
ES: That's interesting.
KM: they moved to Deer Park, went to Deer Park about three years ago and that was the end, then I said "I give up I'm getting too old." Every day I'd go to Deer Park, You know where Deer Park is?
ES: Yes, it's far. How often did you have to go down to the sandbanks to deliver these blueprints would you say?
KM: Not very much.
ES: Once or twice?
KM: Oh no, no, every once in a while. I'd go to the big office there, that's all, yeah, in the office.
ES: And do you remember who you waw in the office?
KM: Yeah, but not any more, I don't know his name anymore. That was when we were in the blueprint business, then we went into the printing business.
ES: Yes, but I think it's interesting that you did the blue- prints for the trestles.
KM: Oh yeah, with this old, big machine with ammonia comes out of the machine like that, you know, out comes a blueprint.
ES: And were they still actively putting up trestles and conveyer belts when you were working for Port?
KM: Oh yeah, oh yeah, sure. I don't know putting up trestles, yeah, they were doing something, they had all these big layouts. Oh, sure, they must've been improving. It was that last one that's there, none of the others, just that last one's there, the one today that stands there, none of the others, they were gone, had no dealings with them, yeah.
ES: Colonial.
page 14
KM: Colonial, I don't know how long they're gonna be. You don't see much digging but they're still digging aren't they?
ES: Yes, they're far back towards the cliffs.
KM: Yeah, yeah, there's not much left, I think. That's the trouble. They're about done, already.
ES: What would you like to see be done with the land that is now barren that Colonial has mined?
KM: There's supposed to be all beautiful houses down there.
You know, not apartments but, what do you call those one-story houses?
ES: Town houses.
KM: Yeah, that was in the paper that was gonna be. All in there, beautiful, it's gonna be a lovely layout, but with the depression going on today I don' t se&~-~it happening, it's not going to happen yet.
ES: Would you buy a house in that area if you could?
KM: No, no, I'm gonna die here, it's my house. I'm gonna stay right here and die. I'm happy here. It's private here, it's lovely and lonely here, not alot of noise. Although last Friday they slashed ten cars on the next street down here.
ES: I know, I heard. What I'll do is conclude the interview now by thanking Mr. Markland so much for cooperating and letting us interview him today.
KM: Well, it was very nice speaking to you.
ES: Mr. Markland, we did say goodbye but I wanted to ask you, I forgot, about the Marino mansion up on Port Washington Boulevard. Can you describe what this stone house looked like and something about the man?
KM: Well the man was a big, fat man with a moustache, and as you go in the whole wall, the whole floor, was in tile, little white tiles. He had fountains in there, and he had a £ountain outside. It was beautiful. And he was a nice old man, yeah, knew him for years, Mr. Marino.
ES: Do you know his house was built out of the sand in the sandbanks? Or the gravel.
KM: big stone blocks, imported stone blocks,
big stone
page 15
KM: blocks, you know, like that.
ES: And they were imported?
KM: Well, I imagine so, yes, sure, sure, that Marino castle, sure, that was imported. There were big, stone blocks all glued together, yeah.
ES: And how did you know Mr. Marino?
KM: Through radio, I was with the boss
for twenty years, we used to sell him radio, then we opened to washing
machines and different things like that and I used to go to his house.
He says, "give me a coupla bucks for that old clock there."
I said, "Sure." It was layin' in the attic, layin' in the
attic, layin' in the attic and last year I brought it out of the attic.
I said "line up, make it run, get 'em all going". There's
another clock over there, see that one, that goes.
ES: And Mr. Marino owned one of the sandbanks?
KM: No, I don't think he had anything to do with sandbanks.
ES: I thought he was from the Marino family that were the sand contractors.
KM: It could be, I couldn't say, I don't
know. He had two sons, one hung himself and all that, we don't want
that. (Tape interrrupts) Al Smith used to come to the East Side when
Mr. Mosher was the head of the sandbanks down there, and they used to
say
he was a drunkard, he was a mess. Al Smith, the old president, you know.
And they used to bring the liquor in from the shore there and they wanted
Mr. Mosher to give them money to do that but he wouldn't do it. That
didn't go through, in the back there, with the liquor. And he wouldn't
do it, but it didn't hurt him none, but he refused it. His son told
me about that, yeah.
ES: That's an interesting story. This is the end of Interview Number One with Kenneth Markland.
The date is December 1, 1981.
INDEX
Return to page 1
Colonial Sand and Gravel Co. 14
Gallagher Bros. Sand Co. 1,5,9
"The Great Flood"[movie] 1,5
Marino Mansion 14,15
Markland, Alfred(bro.) 1-4
Markland, "Alf" (father) 4,11
Mosher [Moger?]Mr. 5,6,15
"Perils of Pauline"[movie] 1,5
"WEF" Radio Towers 7