RL:

Well, When I was a young man in France the trade officially Is known as a repousser worker. The word repousser means It really means to repulse or push back, as you knovk the metal out and you push it back into the exact shape you want. Well, the French used to brag that they were the inventors of repousser work and that the biggest thing ever made repousser was the Statue of Liberty. Well, of course, like any other youngster, I ran around„--to s look at that place where all this was done in. And it's still LYNCH 2 stand— Ing just the same way. And in the meantime I did a hitch In the Army. Here ' s I was a horseshoer, And 1 than my Army pay by making I ike that, which fitted my one of my off my . supported myself other spurs and bits and things training. And there wag a man named James Vito McDowa He wag from Texas and he was a Calvary captain. And he was stationed In New York City for some National Guard detached training for them. And he was quartered on Bedloe's Island, and he lived In the old wooden barracks there from World War I. Of course, this squadron was somewhat after World War I; It wag seven or eight years. As you know from World War Il we have stuff an over t.he place. Well, anyway, I used to go to visit him and look at the statue in passing. And they kept telling me that it needed repairing and a certain lieutenant was in charge of It and I should talk to him. So I did finally meet this lieutenant. And so he asked me what It would cost to get It repaired. So I walked around the statue with him. And I said, "Well, I think I could do it for fifteen hundred dollars So he went to see his Irrunediate superior, and they arranged that I would get fifteen hundred dollars for what repair work I thought the statue needed. And that I should be paid every two weeks as LYNCH 3 the thing progressed. So this lieutenant whose narae I wish I could remeraber, he went up to the public 1 Ibrary in New York to look up contracts with contractors. And he was a good g tuddnt all right. He was a funny looking man, He had a big long neck and his uniform collar was much too big for his neck. And it looked as thoughthe was trying to escape out of his uniform. - And when -he got excited, his Adam's apple would go up and down . Anyway, there was nothing wrong with his character, He did what any sensible man would do; he drew up a con— tract, Now there are many things in this contract that you would find in any contract, but one th±ng he put In there, that when I was finished with this I had to leave clean, had to remove all debris, scaffolds , tools, et cetera, et cetera, from the island and then I would get my final payment of two hundred and fifty dollars . In the meantirne, I started to there . And one of the first things I found was a tool chest, and I think we still have I'm not absolutely certain if this is the one, But anyway, we opened this tool chest and it was exactly what we would need for our work. Oh, boy, I was rail Iy glad! because if I were to bring my tools down, I would have to take them on this .11tt1e steamboat they had and left them what was then the aqqaa±um what wag down there, down the battery. And here are all the LYNCH 4 tools ready for me to go to work, except a few dools that I might need and some scaffolding material . So I went about my job and used these tools. For Instance, this mal lot with the long handle on {t, where would I ever find such a thing? That was made for that job, no question about that, And I could be up on the scaffold and I could hit that copper where I wanted and get it right back into place. The other mallet I see I broke a piece off of it. I can't remember this happening, but . want me to stop? Okay. Anyway, when the job wag completed and I tried to get my payment of two hundred and fifty dollars, he {n the meantime didn't know anything about these French tools and he wasn't interested. The fact that the contract says no tools be left, take them away. Well, I needed that two hundred and fifty dollars pretty badly. And so I rennved the tools. Then It began to bother me years later. And I tried to give them to the Smithsonian Institution, but people at the statue couldn't care less in those days. They just didn 't know anything about this, They had no authority to accept tools then. bhny of them wrote and recently a rren by the nartE of McClanahan who was the resident, what do you call him? Superintendent, a very nice man. We had some meetings about this. And he said, "I have no authority In this matter. I said, n Let's get in touch with somebody who LYNCH 5 does . I'm get±lng old. I could die any day. Let's get rid of these tools to the people who rightfully own them. Well, I went down there a couple of times. There was some contractors working there. I think It was a roofing, sheet—metal roofing, contract there. V•men was that work done? That must have been ten years ago, wasn't it?

MP:

Phre than that.

RL:

Okay. I was yonng enough at that time. I'm not eighty yet, but I'm getting right there . I was young enough at that time to go up on the scaffold. They have a steel scaffold around the statee, and I was able to climb there and see what they were trying to do. And in their owra way, you know, they would go you pretty good. And in the meantime McClanahan got transferred someplace. And we tried to give to the library, ihkind of Smithsonian, and we wrote to your department, and we couldrft get any results, Well, I 'm getting old; I don't want this on my mind. I think it's a great thing, and Reader's Digest is going to do a story on this for you, and for me. And I would be delighted to turn these over to you. Now what do I want for doing this all these years? I want zero. I don't want any money at all. (laughter) But I want people LYNCH 6 to know that I'm the man that rebuilt that thing. Now what I did to it really, I'm a very good climber. 1 went to sea, vou know, and I learned how to sit in the boat's •jam right in the air. Funny thing about that statue, the wind had to be exactly right. Other€dise, you 'd be hanging over Forty—second Street instead of the ferry when it was coming up the harbor, (laughter) I had egg lines to pull myself back; that's a pretty windy spot there, you know. And the biggest problem with the statue at that time was looseness . Stuff had worked itseTåy loose and it was leaking. And it leaked buckets of water which they proceeded to clean up in a very old—fashioned way. They used a scoop shovel and a pail. And way down at the bottom, you know, where the statue is anchored onto the masonry, that' s where you had the water. And you couldn't stop leaks. You don't need a lot of caulking cornpounds; they' re all But you can pain the metal so the two parts kiss each other and it won't admit any water. Well, there were some sheets that seemed to be loose, rivets gone and so forth. I fixed all that up. And I don't think we used more than two new sheets on the whole LYNCH 7 job. We used this piece of wood here and that's called a bible. And that thing is the best sheet metal. See that? That's the thing you take out on the job, and I used that bible to bend the flashing that I used down there. That's a French thing. And that's just cormnon all over the world, a bible is. So that's just a phase in the Now about the film, that's the whole s tory of the thing. I think I like your speculation on the fact that the tools you really feel were left by the 1886 KL: Well, now finding these tools in the basement of the statue certainly they ' re not of American make as near as I can say. And there's too broad a variety of them for any one man to have. And t.he French did always do a lot more with tools than any other group of people . French and Germans were great tool and they would invest in tools to accomplish their work. Well, the tools were certainly there when we went to do our work, and they are certainly not my property. And I ' ve tried now for fifty—five years to give them back to soytebody . And I'm 80 pleased that you people came to see me today, and we are going to get these out of here. Of course, at age you 've got to get ready for your Neparture from this wonderful scene and tidy up everything. And so this will LYNCH 8 take one thing off my mind and we '11 all get together some way to deliver them to you down there . And certainly the tools were a great help to me as I did the work. And as we worked around the statue, we used four sides like twelve o'clock, three o'clock , six o'clock and nine o'clock. Now nine o' clock and three o ' clock were the east and west sides, And this is how we planned our work, And we were intelligent enough to take pictures of the statue, and I believe we had some of them blown up and then we circled on the photographs wäeeetme wanted to make these repairs. Now I think you should want to know what indicated repair was to be made. Number one, the darnaging was loose or We had to tighten up. And, two, we had to look for leaks. Leaks are very easy to find. We have pictures here, we can show you Shere it's been leaking. But we worked up one side of the statue and used ropes and a bozeman's chair. And it was a l±ttle hairv at times, but I was an old sailor by that time. Young man with an old sailor. And that's an interesting thing, I went to sea with a captain who I Ived just around the corner from me. He 1 ived directly between where the future Mrs. Lyrrch lived and where I llved (chuckle) right In the middle. And his name was Captain Spencer. LYNCH 9 And that was the first ship, that one up there. And I spent as many days up in the rigging as I did on deck, I think, because we were reppiring this old wooden ship all the time. And I followed him on steamships and so forth. But sitting {n a bozeman's chair and working was no new experience for me. At any rate ropes and so forth. I don't know. Oh, to the statue which was a band around it, high up and a rope . Really it's what we call In mountain climbing repelling. Exactly, exactly. Except that most of the time I sat in a bozeman's chair, which is a flat piece of wood with a rope coming up out of each side of it. That thing was used, the bozeman's chair was used mostly for inspection and for caulking because if you pushed against the statue, this thing went back. And I did have two tag lines, that big rope about the size of my finger, three— quaréEr Inch I ine, to snug the ends. And I had two men helping me. One rnan I can't remember; he was a fairly good mechanic; he was a German. And the other rrzn was a man named Jack Aimey, and we used to- call him the gofer because he had to go for everything. And here's your man up in Boston; there's your job. Mr. McManus did that. That's right. Well, it's a good picture. And that man that took those LYNCH 10 pictures was all right. And theré's how a weather vane was made. And here's the old ship, you see, of the sail plane But I 'm going to show you somewheres in here. We made so many different weather vanes, it's hard to count them. This work went on I think for eighteen months because we didn't have that many good days, you know. And on some days it' s bitter cold down there and you just canet work on that island when it's that cold. Of course, heat and everything now In these buildings, I would aseu.me .

MP:

( laughter) KL: You'd say that. Yes, I say, something I don't know any— thing about, But, Connie, I'm not finding what I want. Find the picture of . Took a seaman in the metal work to do this real well .

MP:

( laughter) Somebody that wanted to do It. And we would go two, three weeks, we couldn't go on the statue In the bitter cold weather. I think the whole thing took about a year and a half I'm just guessing that, you see. In fact, I can't even tell you when I started.

MP:

This included the head and the am, did it? Well, let nee tell you that the statue had been worked on by others. There was a sculptor named no, not Manger, but Boardwell, and he worked on the light that's up there around the torch, something like that. LYNCH 11 And he designed that fixture on And this Is what they call a 1 i fe boat and If you 're a quick reader, you can read that. Read it out loud. We ran the around the base of the statue, a very long rope, which a couple of hundred feet long, of course. What's the diameter at the base of the statue? Do you know? Well, three times that diameter use the length of rope that you 'd need, Gives its circumference . I remember we put a bowline in the end of the line, half double hook, and we kept slipping It up until we got up high enough so that we could use it as a means of hoisting. Then we made It fast up there. I do not remember anyplace but one place where we could out of the statue onto the Ease of the, on the face of the figure. We rigged up scaffolds on the inside, of course. And when I was working on the outside, this other man whose name I can't remember, he was working on the inside. But when you set rivots, it takes two men. And one man has to buck it and the other rtEn harmers And if my memory is right, I did the bucking andthe outååde and they did the harmering from the inside. And then, of course, after t.he rivot is set, then you have to work on the copper to make one piece of copper kiss LYNCH 12 the other pieee. And this has to be real good, a man of Integrity.

MP:

What does kiss? Overlap, right. Now that tool, Patty, there 's attool there called a right in front of you. No, no, it t s, there you go, that's It. Let me have that. It's galled a goat's foot, And that's the exact type of tool that you use on the copper. This does not go on the rivot. Now the rivoting tool had a little round hole in it, but this tool, obviously the handle is gone . Thi B åå the tool; you held this again the copper. There was a wooden handle in this. And you held that against the copper and you hit this with another harmer, and that's what brought the copper down, made the copper klss each other BO that It wouldn't leak. Leaking wag the big problem. And any coppersmith could do this, you know. There' B no name on this. I wish there was some names on these. Here's a 108 or something on It. You got a telegram? Here's a magnifying glass. Anyway, whether it was that tool or one like it, I 'd gee another stand on there as well . (Murnbllng in the background) LYNCH 13 Yes. bbst tools were Now you can cast a blank with this and then hammer it the way this was done. That was the beauty of cast stem I mean you could harden It. Now this tool has been hardened and there" gait underneath that . See it over here? And these are probably a weight. But most of them you 'd see up The French were great for that. They loved that. But you could cast the basic shape and harmer out the rest of It. Now let stay. So anyway, we had, we gigged up a rope and four by four. All the lumber wag on the island all ready. We didn't bring any lurnber over there. But it was quite an installation. Are there any pictures of that island as it was and after üéNdsWar I? (Mumbling in the background) Show me the pictures . I' 11 pick out the barracks and everything for you. Sure. Do you have pictures of the steamboat that used to go? Yes . That'd be interesting to see. It was black and white . (Pbre mumbling — I just can't make it out) LYNCH 14 Well, anyway, the problems was resetting the rivot and hammering down the ddges where they would admit water. because you wanted as little caulking as possible. Now when we 're through with this tape, I'm going to pull these pictures out and divide them with you. And I 've made overlays so that you can understand what the pictures are. Now we have two sets of pictures here . One set of pictures of the model which at the Museum of Arts and Trades in Paris. And I have the negatives of those. And you have whatever copies you want. And that I ittle model is very important and to me, of course because the man who made that model for the museum, he worked on the statue the entire time, And my man in 2Lntrea1 Is the Frenchrnan Parisienne, and he was on the phone last night. And he could write to them for us. They' re very difficult to get letters from. But he was able to do this. It took alrtDst a year to get the photographs. There were hundreds of letters going over there. They finally did it. I think the photographs cost me a few hundred dollars. They charged us a big bunch of money for them, Anyhow, I'm going to share those with you, and I' 11 point out to this LYNCH 15 tool. You' 11 see tools like this right in these pictures . This man who made these r&deåi is pretty good. And the other pictures I've got there are pictures of the existing statue. Then, of course, you people know about these groups of photographs, I'm sure. What's the narne of the firm in New York City there? Yes , And we think so much of the statue that we buy these by the hundred most of the time. And we give them away to people. And we 're always doing something like that here. It's a way to make yourself . ( laughter) A woman came here with a weather vane one day. Oh, It was a crumny looking thing of a horse. It wag all beaten up and so forth, It was, she believed it was made in Taiwan. She wanted us to repair It, but she wouldn't entrust it to us in her absence. So we had to work on it every day while she stood over us. And so we sent her away. ( laughter) Yes, you got it right. I don't know what we'd do with— out you. Now suppose we work on these photographs . All the way over, Pat; that's aboy. Now we' Il come to this last. Incidentally, read this. LYNCH 16 MP : KL: Oh, yes. We have one of these, don u t we? Or we did have until it was stolen, Is this the one that was s tolen? Yes . I' 11 get one badk to the Boyce". Not too bad, Dr Boyce was the doctor that took care of . when she had her cancer operation. He took care of her for some years. md very successfully so By the way, she' B s I {ving. And we rnade that and 80 forth. Now, this picture of the model in Paris. I' 11 give you one each of the other things, Now, this model exists; about seven or eight feet tall and about one meter square, eight feet square. And these are you know, Now here they' re harmerlng copper, and the copper sheet has holes {n the side, And these are iron hooks holding e copper dowrx. And they made these weights in an old tea kettle, as you can see, made out of lead. And the teakettle {s on one of th e shelves here somewhere. And that held the copper down while they harmered on it. And they weee great users of these 1 Ittle horses all the time. And If you look carefully there, you'll see little horses in the picture I Ike these things over here. they u sed horses, ropes, and then these irons are what you used for reinforcing the inside . This Is a gas arrangement, and they used a torch to heat the copper. And these pressure LYNCH 17 were to hold the copper down so it didn't spring back. Now we have . One man was entrusted, holding that down? That's right. Give it a little nore,pressure, Joe, or something 1 Ike that.

MP:

This model is where now, Paris?

RL:

Oh, yes. It's In Paris. That's in their rost Important museum now. Here's an overlay of that. And I can give you these. And then this is all explained here, You see, we did this here. Now I would think that would be important to you.

MP:

Yes .

KL:

And so we' 11 give you this and this, prints of them, right? Let's see, T anvil.

KL:

All right. That would be a B. Should be down here somewhere. Where Is B? MPL Oh, here's the overlay. Ah, there we are, B, all right. Right, there it is right there .

MP:

T anvil. hd that T anvil was one of the tools that you have . Yes. I' 11 tell you what, There it is with the point sticking up. It's the one that we have here like it. No, no, let Mrs.. McRiniey . Look at me, Mr. McKinley. LYNCH 18 look at me. Look at my finger now. Right up between the two tall things that are standing up. We made it with the cheeks on the side. Put her right up here. You can't hurt this desk. This is made for this. See hov this Is made, with the cheeks on the side there? And that's a typical French design, of course. Only a Frenchman would go to that trouble to get it 11ke that Are there any markings on It?

MP:

This Is the T anvil we're looking at. One of the T anvils. This Is a handmade face now. Probably made by a forgerlng house. Okay, we 11 put It down. Are you strong enough? We have Identified the material and ask what questions you will while it' s in front of us. Then we' 11 lohk at another sheet. Oh, yes, keep It right together. Now we '11 put this to one side. Now this one is of great interest to me beaause of one thing. Sohething In thæ way here. Oh. This is a ball anvil. And I have many ball anvils that I use in my trade of harmerlng out horses and statues and so forth. But, no, I 've kever seen them In as many shops in America. You see them in Europe. And I must have thirty or forty ball anvils of different sizes . Now this one also is all laid out for you. See? And I Will see that you get copies of this material LYNCH 19 SIDE 2: KL: It was a •inch and it also acted as a leader, But you' 11 find ladders all over the place in one, two, three —— that's only three ladders In this picture. Here 's some more shown up here. Three, four Anyway, I would say yes, it was two or three stories. But accordi.ng to what little research I do, and when you go to Paris, you can scoot around and catch moee . Now let's take these pictures here.- These are the pictures that I hdd them take in Paris. And my little museum here is called The Craft Center Museum. I don't know. Will you fix that, yes. Fix it. Take one. We '11 see about it. I'm delighted to find you gentlemen so eager to see this material because this MP : New to me. Yes . The Church of the Holy Grail was nothing compared to a lot done with these tools. Now these are pictures, and there's the ones you had the big one of. Yes And so forth, right? And I guess that's the other one that we •ve had enlarged, you see. Now I cam give you prints of these because I have the negatives, and that you can look at these, here and numbered from every angle, you see. It's four? Oh, yes, excus e me. This business of being one handed is a nuisance. Now you 20 see these things here? Those are rough molds they used to check the shape of the sheets. And they cut that out of wood. You see that? Yes.

KL:

And • Yes. Oh, well, I give you print'. These are called aren't they?

KL:

That's right, The real name for that åndEngi1sh would be an armature. And here's your friend, see? Now you'll see this there in Paris. Isn't that something? Here's all the ladders, you see. I was very much interested In all the little horses they had, and I don't see them this morning. There's a head being assembled, you see. And I don't see so many I Ittle horses as this morning. I have a collection of horses , little wooden horses like those over there, Those are from the island, those horses over there, of course. Now you see how the men did it and all the ropes holding it down, spring it into position. Is there a collection of photographi of them assernblying this on Ellis Island? LYNCH 21 MP : We have some wood engravings; there were wood engravings at the time. Not many.

KL:

Yes, but theyhhad to do a lot. When you take this things apart some of the sheets bulge out and they knocked them back In again. They had a persuader. There's anne for those big mallets. I think they' re called comlanders. MP ; Yes . In English. Now, so those are the pictures we have. Now I think these are different sizes of the same . Now if you were to tell me what you want, we '11 see to it that you get it. That's actual They're the game, yes. Well, I They had one through, how many are there , Pat? Ten.

KL:

You got them right here , That's great.

KL:

Very competent of somebody. Make sure they' re in sequence. Hey, you want these numbers from the back, don 't you?

MP:

The inventory . Yes. LYNCH 22 Well.

KL:

I'd make a record of It. Want me to do it for you? on the tape? We 'Il do that.

KL:

Well, you t re not going to have these. No I'm just going to copy them. Oh , Fine. And the name of the museum, of course, which means I used to speak French perfectly Oh, Erench especially. Mr. Lynch, what do you think the significance of the tools are? Say, if we were to create an exhibit, what would you like people to know or get out of it? Well, I think that's a good question. Now people have no idea how this statue was made. They think It was cast into a mold or something, and they don't realize that there are men in the world who did hammer things out such as this and t.hat statue. And this art became refined about the time the Statue of Liberty was done because they weee building steamships at that time and they wanted lots of art and decoration in the steam— ships. And if you put heavy casts in them, it made the ship that much more, you had to propel through the water. So all of the places where weight meant anything LYNCH 23 the repousserwork was used. We are the last ones doing it, you see. All that ornament which looks 1 Ike stone, but it's really metal. And we can give you a catalogue of ours showing that those pieces that look 1 i.ke stone, but they' re actually metal. I'll get that 1 off his, Put a seven four seven Nur in the du•nb waiter, please-. So that trade is a van#shed trade; it's gone. And you' re looking at the last man, except in Paris we have two men. We all know each other, of course. And, you see, the French buildings only go up, I think, three stories originally. They only go three stories high because the stone was so heavy it would make the building sink into the ground. The soil has certain strength to it. And it would, if you put all stone work up four stories, most of the sOåiein Paris wouldn't take {t. So the final story was done of metal like this. And see these things were all originally done in stone, especially these and things like this. And now what we do, we make them in metal by the repousser. There's sonehhing there you want to •ee? That looks just like stone. You can take this with you. MPL Thank you. So the repousser came over, wag a big thing . And in the front of this book of mine I wrote a . you should read that LYNCH 24 about rope drop staißings, you know. Maybe stamping is the wrong word; it's really repousser work. After you do it, after you harnrner it, then you have to tool It up a 11tt1e bit so it looks real good. How would you approach, suggest we deal with people who are visiting the statue ind viewing theee tools on display in terms of their tour of the Statue of Liberty? All right. If I were you, I would act pretty quick while I'm still alive and still able to explain these things to you, and I would get that in my file. ltd show you all my personal tools . Patty, open that case with the tools that were just polished and p ut them right in front of us here. Let me get this out of the way. Now There 's something underneathtthat making them fall. Oh, that only thing. I think that's called a goat's foot. I'm not sure of that. However, what I would do, I would plan to get the history of the repousser thing right down . And I'm going to show you now some tools years ago ' this will kind of date me. Give me that 25 I Ittle anvil behind you there, See, it' 8 to nuke models of tools 80 that you can exhibit your tools. And I roade these when I was about twenty -four years old. And It's part of a big exhibition that I had, And you' 11 see some interesting things here. And we went to great . Here's a hamner made of a I ittle bird with the stone Is up, Put it down, Pat. Weil, the whole thing was a . that's it . Yes, that comes out, too. That's called aasow block and the other things can be dropped right in the hole there. How was that? Where are those other small tools? Yes, that '8 supposed to fit on that black thing that's over there. There's a hole In the wood. Now what I would do If I were you and wanted to tell the story, I would get ahold of some repousser tools, which we' 11 help you with; there's no question about that. And we' 11 make a half in this piece of repousser work so they can see what happened, how it developed. And there' s a square. Everything had to be 11ttie touch of art. Well, the French were great for this I made these. How do you 1 ike that 11tt1e sword? Isn 't that pretty? Yes, well, that's all done by hand. What did you say? These are repousser tools. This is what you use for small repousser work, not real small 1 ike *liverware. But this would be for Iron and copper. Now the tools used for this statue were many times that size. LYNCH 26 You can see by the scale of them over here. But what Bartoli had to do wag to rtÜdeI the statue first, which he did only about one meter tall, I believe. And then you have an enlarging machine. You put points on It and you can enlarge It let's say five times. And then you refine that alignment. Then you' Il enlarge that five times more So the next thing you know, you 've got this thing up to the size you want. And that 's what you gee In those pictures. Now what they did, they made a wood and they smoothed plaster over it. And then Bartoli had to check it, looking at It and see If it looked right, The fingers look like fingers instead of a hand of bananas or something like that, And the net result would be that they would have this enlaggement of the little thing. They had a of almost the whole building there as you can see from these pictures. And there's one little box mixsing. Oh, here they are. Now these are chasing This Is a scriber, used to scribe I ines on that. There 's a typical chasing tool for copper and silver, . you see. We have them much smaller than this. Then we haue great big ones BO big hand, there's one with a ball on the end, You see that right on the flöor there. That s right. That's the same thing, only bigger, you see. Now to get back to your question, I would create an exhibit. And I think I'd put up a piece of a steel scaffold and which we would be glad to glve to you. And have a LYNCH 27 manåqgåin up there and a sheet partly formed which Is no big deal to do this sort of thing. And that mannequin can have that big harmer in his hand. And I wuld think, the last time I wag down there and this Is when Mr. McClanahan wag there, they've little on the wall. The people going by, fifteen thousand people can't see anything from that. They' re too •mall . I think they need something big in scale . And it would be no problem to do this while I'm still alive. And I 'm not going to do it with my own hands, but I've got men that I can make do It just like, you know. If we were to use this mannequin and tools, would we be recreating a scene of the original fabrication of the statue? I think so. And we would be inspired by what we see in these pictures. And let's not try to do something extraordinary ,wbth twenty—first century tools . Let g do it the way it was done. So these tools would be representative of the types of tools used in Exactly, yes. And the thing that you don't see here, we used a great many wooden tools. And these wooden tools were perishable; they were all perishable tools . And when you were through us ing them, they used them to heat the place with. And, but you would take a tool, take a piece of oak, four by four oak, and fix the end of LYNCH 28 it and then drive that onto the capper, And the oak is harde but it's not as hard as copper. So the oak would push it dovm to punch it. If you want to change it a little bit, you could grind it or saw on or do whatever you wanted to. And I would think that if the people saw this and we rigged up some work benches of something, they would get a better understanding on how it was done because everybody I t ve ever met they think the statue was cast, and it wasn't. It was repousser hand patted. And, of course, it's the biggest thing 1 Ike that that I 've ever seen. And none of the other g tatuex come anywhere near it. What is it, is It two hundred feet high, a hundred and fifty feet?

MP:

MP:

MP:

A hundred and fifty—one fdet. How about that? A hundred and fifty-one feet. That ' s a big statue I I'll say I And so this repousser work is extremely important, and so they'd get the idea of what it's all about. Next. You discovered these tools in the statue. Where did you discover them and in the process did you find any other evidence of the workmen, maybe graffåti or initials or . No. I can't remember. I might have been conscious to gee that, but I can't remember that at all. Today I 'd be LYNCH 29 more conscious of it because of the condition in the subways and so fort-h. And Kilroy was here in World War 11 and so on. But I can't remember that. Maybe some work when the Americans might have put something down. The French aren't so keen to mark things up. As a matter of fact, I got a great shock when I was in Paris and went back to my Old school , and there's a statue there in plaster of poi 1 u. The word pollu 11Eans hairy. And the French always would be called the hairy ones because they couldn 't shave. beards and moustaches, and this iB a statue done by Bordelle; he was Rodin's favorite pupil, Bordelle was And here this wonderful statue was there, and these modern young men at the school had decorated his face with various designs and on his uniform put medals on him and go forth. Now that wasn't the French of fifty ears ago. The Americans might have done it, but not the French. I doubt If these Frenchmen would have put their names in It. But I never noticed it. But I wasn't looking for anything like that. The tools we came, I think the first tool was tha t big mallet and which was perfect for what I wanted to do. Well, if there's one there's got to be more, you see.

MP:

What was your thought when you stum>led across the mallet? Do you recall? Nice of them to leave It there f6r me, and thank you, Freachie. And I think that .

MP:

Possibility this is, these were left from the Gutts and Borg lum effort. LYNCH 30 No. These aren't American —type tools. That's a different thing. Take this big tool little way, right in front of the suitcase there. See that big . no, the big one. Right in front of your feet. No, no, look at me. They do everything but look at my finger. There, that's It. Yes . Now who else would have a thing like that except a man that was going to do something awful big l±ke this , you see? And you understand how these tools are used. They' re trying to get a picture of me here. Well , we can get pictures for you from . . but we'd Ilke to have some more. Okay, yes. Ail right. Well, thig business of being an active working smith all these years, you get to be kind of a bogs man of the whole world on lt. Got It all right? Fine. We gave you a picture of those tools, but enjoy yourself. Take all you want. Right. Why don't you ask some questions? I guess what I'm trying to get at are maybe some of the personal reminiscences you might have of your days on the statue, maybe any thoughts that, stories that some of the they might be able to portray. Any thoughts you . I didn 't know too much about the statue. I was interested like any other would be, and I visited the statue with my father when I was a 1 ittle boy. And he explained to me what the statue meant in the harbor. And he had it LYNCH 31 exactly right. And I felt that the statue was a friend of mine. And never thinking that it would become this important for me having worked on it. But at that time it was just a fun thing to do because I could go down there and work and then spend the evening with my friend, Captain McDowe The lait boat was at eleven— thirty at night and so we'd spend an evening. Then I'd grab the last boat, and I was living in a place called Tudor City in New York City at that time right up the street from Grand Central, you know. And so I could leave McDow and get a subway down there at the battery and be home in ten, fifteen minutes. And we spent a lot of time together. And McDow was an especially fine man. Of course, he was very young at that time, and so was 1. But he enjoyed seeing me working and I enjoyed working on it. But I had no great ideas about its importance at that time . When I did find these tools, I do remember a big box full of the smaller stuff, we were rEking jokes. We tried to drag the box out where we could see it. It's pretty dark down there in the basemene, as you know, unless you've added a lot of windows or something. But it was pretty dark and we couldn't hardly this box it was so heavy. They used equipment, of course, to it, LYNCH 32 some kind of a hoist. And I'm not sure if we had that box or not, but we have one that makes me think it 's it. LYNCH 33 r..mCH But you '11 get about one—quarter of these tools in a box, it's a good—sized box. But I would think if you loaded it with these tools, I kind of think it would break apart. It t s made out of wood that thick, And I'm not at all sure that's the box. However, we can look at that and decide at a later date. However, these tools were Inert, and in those days the basement wasn't used by visitors, I don't think. It was more of a rubbhsh storage place. They had, you know these stanchions they put to keep the crowds back? There were old stanchines dovm there and a lot of broken furniture And the basement was not used, I suppose it t s used today, but do they come up a bottom level now? Well, I think they came in at a higher level. It was an intermediate deck. I sort of remember that being made of dement or stone or something. And I do remember that we started out by checking the anchors. I can remember those anchors . I could draw them for you, and they were sound. There was nothing left to be done to the anchors. They weee good and fast, into the granite. And Eh"déxtally, the granite for the base changédom Connecticut. Thaes right. And our family probably made the tools to cut the granite. And there's one quarry called Cherry Creek, I think it is, or I'll get you the right name. I es up here in Beaulford or Branford. They have forty 34 blacksmiths working there making chisQs. It was that big at one time. And a man who still's still living remembers when there were a hundred men on the face of the granite scene all drilling by hand. This is before the days of the air compressor and the pressed air tools, And the blacksrait-hs had to shappen these every day. I imagine they must have had four or five hundred men working there all the time . I can' t name of that barge . In any event, we determined that the statue was held properly because if we had repaired without checking the anchors, the thing could again and break loose from what we did. Copper when hot, I 'd say hot enough to meld, then it gets cold, shrinks three— sixteenths of an inch to the lineal foot. Now when the hot sun gets on the statue and that Saturday it was very hot, I can tell you. You can't touch it sometimes, it got that hot. When the hot sun gets on it, that statue has to expand. And the north side would not expand as much as the south side. It might be a difference of maybe I'd say six or eight inches so the statue was moving all the time. Can you hear it anymore? Do the LYQJCH statue make noise? That's what I thought, And it did when I was down from the wind I felt LYNCH 35 at the time. And you can almost feel the thing moving a little bit. Oh, yes. The thing that we were worried about was the thumb. There was a little ladder in the thumb. Is it still there? might as well do it. The big job is getting up there. Once you' ve got that rope up around the neck or some other place, you got the guys on the ground so they will help hoist you up. You might as well look at MP : The thurnb holdi@ethe book or the thumb? The thurab in the torch, Used to be a little ladder In it. And I don't thinkit was a steel ladder, It may have been; I can 't relæmber now. But I know there was a ladder, a little ladder, up there only about so wide, And we made a repair up there sometime. Of course, you know, with these repairs you start at the bottom and go up in laps like shingles, you know.

MP:

Did you have to crawl space of the statue, every inch of the statue?

KL:

Well, no. For fifteen hundred dollars (chuckle) we did what we could do, but we were conscientious about it. This is for sure. You examined it.

KL:

Sure. Ohy yes. Well, once you were up in the air, you 36 everything while you' re there. And I was that kind of a person; I still am. I would want to know if there's anything bad up there. I cannot remertber finding anything that was real sick about the statue . It was all real good. One thing that impressed me was, you know, the man that did the interior, he did the FFfiffæIl Tower, of course, he knew what he was doing, And he had these blacksmiths making those ribs which I' ve got photographs of somewheres here. And have you ever studied those little ribs thataare inside the statue? Stuff about that wide and about that thick. Well, they used bending forks, and this is something I would furnish to them. They used bending forks end that Iron was heated and then very acaurately to fit the copper. Have you ever studied that? Well, let me say this. Are there any pictures here, the interior of the statue that we took, our pictures that you' ve seen before? Thks is all of that stuff, Here you are. Here you are. Now, I particularly wanted to get these pictures . See how carefully all of this is bent? See how that one's bent in there? Now we 've got the LYNCH 37 wrong side out to you. This is all very carefully done by the blacksmiths in France, and we checked it all out. These things written on here, I don 't know who did that stuff on there. But all this was done by the Frenchmen. And somebody electric welled with that, you see that there? This probably could have been put in since my time there Yes, that's right. Now you see how it overlayed like that?

MP:

You mean this piece is over the top of it? Exactly • Just like shingles on a building.

MP:

the bottom, too , Now this is all repousser work up there. This is up in the top knot. But these irons here are very important to the whole statue because, and Eiffel laid all that out. See how that followed that copper? Now I think whah I should do if you go ahead with this thing, I ' 11 get some more and I' 11 bend it up for you like that so they can see how that supports were made. We give you the tools for doing it. Now see, this shows it all overlaid. You see that? Look at that lath of iron in there . There might have been a little iron put in by somebodythise since then, but what those fellows did was pretty good. Look at how careful Iv this iron follows this copper, and it supports it perfectly. See that? This is no easy job to get, the copper was harruaered first and then the Iron was made to fit the copper. The iron is actually structural armature to that. See all these pieces here? That was a monurnental task for the LYNCH blacksmith, and I think you should have that in your exhibit as well. And someone who, I' 11 see that you get prints of these right away, and make aare the plant doesn 't send them prints of that. I think that someone is going to lay this whole thing out should get together with me and the best time to do it would be while Mr. Crowell is here. Hds been my associate; he's a designer and a draftsman, and he's been with me, I think, fifty— one years . He's over at my house and we' re arranging an exhibit for our museum of ship models, half the models. And he carved them all himself But he could draw up an exhibit how we saw it at a meeting. He would sketch that right up for you. And I would think and, of course, I haven't been in at the island in so many years I don't remember how the new entranceway way works . But I think if we have something how the statue was made, something about Bartolic, the people , I 've talked to people that have seen it and they don 't even remember the exterior . That's all. They don 't remember the interior. And the inside of the statue to me is very important becaxee of the fact that it is all repousser and is all held by these iron straps , And it took a bit of genius, you know. I thin )yyou've got about eighteen feet, haven't you, in there? LYNCH 39 MP : I think less than -that now.

KL:

Yes, that's right.

MP:

One of our considerations but nonetheless Well, once we had that information . SIDE 3 It's thicker than that; it's thicker than a dime. Well, about six and a half dollars. I think so, as I remember now. Got a piece in your pocket there?

MP:

KL : MP : KL: This may not be the same half dollar. (laughéer) No, but it's about that thick. Is it about that thick? Pretty good man here. ( laughter) Comes equipped . Well, that's about the thickness of it. But, you know, it's thicker and thinner. Tnen you hit it, it gets thinner becaaee it moves the metal . But I would think LYNCH 41 if these people could really understand how It cas built and that It was done repousser and I think for the average person It's awfully complicated to explain, and you t re quite right. It' 8 much better to have a visual kind of something there that does that We would help you with that because I know exactly how to do that. And there's a tool called a bending fork, and we have thzn all over the place here. And that's how those straps were built, were bent so accurately. And if you came here {n your working clothes, I'd put you on a bench with a pair of forks and you could make a bend accurate to the sixteenth of an Inch, And It doesn t t take any greet skill. Oh, Mary.

MP:

Our point of view either today, not today necessarily, but so that we would know what the correct term for each of these tools Is. Now whether we come up here and Paul comes up, for instance, and just puts a tag on each one or something of that sort. That might be a way to do that. Do you take pictures also?

MP:

Yes. LYNCH You do. I' 11 tell you what you do then. I assume you 42 want to do this at another time • Thank you, Mary. Make an appointment with me, and t.he best days to see me are Tuesdays and Thursdays because I don 't go to my PT thing for this stroke on those two days. And I 11 try to get about eleven o t eöock In the corning, ten o' clock In the somewhere In there. MP I'm the one that held everything up today.

RL:

That's all right. Yes, no problem at ail. Now then I can leave these here for another week, My librarlan Is climbing over them. We have a librarian trying to put another two thousand books In place out there. But when do you think you could do {t? The twenty—ninth; there' B a llttle calendar right in front of you here.

MP:

I think I could probably make it back up here. END or INTERVIEW