A Quincy Dry (p2)
Attached to the south end of the dry house was a second much larger building. If it wasn’t in ruin it would appear to be simply part of the rest of the structure, but in it’s current state you could see that the attached structure had a second floor (or at least an attic space) which the first half of the structure did not. This part of the building also had more embellishments over the windows and doors in the form of brick arches. And due to the topography here, it also had a basement.
Here is the southern end of the “new” attachment. As you can see it sits almost three stories in height. The bottom opening is quite large, and looks to be some type of double door entry. (loading door perhaps?) Above that are two levels of windows which look the same. The peaked nature of the wall would suggest that the second window opened to an attic space and not a full floor.
Going through that double door opening we realized that we had come into the basement. Ahead of us the north wall stood not too far away. Around the inside edge of the building’s walls was a ledge - which must of supported the first floor. Most interesting was the large piece of granite protruding out of the basement floor. Instead of blasting it away they simply left it in place and put the building right on top of it. Seems a little lazy. (Is moving a rock that hard for a mining company?)
Turning around we faced the three story southern wall we had just entered through. (Check out the BIG PICTURE for a wide look) The first floor ledge is still easily identified. In the basement level two large holes had been broken into the foundation (to the left and right) - possibly from removing some type of equipment that once sat down here.
Littered all about the basement of the building was a variety of rusty metal things. The piece here looks to be a vent or stovepipe. It probably sat on the roof of the building before the roof fell in - leaving it here on the floor.
Here was a large valve assembly - which seems awfully out of place in a dry house (if that is what this building is). The engraving says it was made in Boston by the Chapman Valve Manufacturing Company. I find it interesting that a company could exists solely by manufacturing valves. They must of been really good valves.
This large piece of equipment looks eerily like a rotor - but the valve on its top would seem to suggest that it was related to water in some way. No idea what it could be used for.
And then there’s these hubcap looking things, except their much larger. About 2 feet in diameter there was a collection of various designs. These sat next to the rotor looking thing so I’m thinking they had something to do with each other. Once again through - no idea why there were here in a dry house. Perhaps this addition was simply a storage building of some sort that happened to be attached to the dry. Or these pieces of machinery were stored here after the mine closed. Could be just about anything I suppose.
Tomorrow: The No. 4 Surface Plant…