Virtual Railfan Tour - Sons of Martha Cairns
Harry McLean was a contractor who built a number of large engineering projects in the 1920s and 1930s. His company, Dominion Construction, was located at Deeks, Ontario, near Merrickville, south of Ottawa.
Deeks was located on the Canadian Pacific Railway Winchester subdivision between Merrickville and Smits Falls.
At Deeks there was a machine shop and storage sidings for the railway equipment that was used on the company's projects. There was also a narrow gauge railway which serviced a stone crushing plant that provided a great deal of railway ballast. This was managed by another company, Grenville Crushed Rock.
Full details of the Deeks operation with its extensive roster of locomotives can be found in my article in Branchline of January 2009 which you can find here:
Teresa Charland wrote an excellent biography of "Big Pants" Harty McLean entitled Building an Empire. Teresa did an excellent job of research,
Harry McLean was well loved by his workers, many of whom followed him around the country from one project to the next. At one point he met Rudyard Kipling and learned of his poem to the Sons of Martha. It is inspired by the biblical story of Jesus at the home of Martha and Mary. It celebrates the care and dedication of workers - engineers, and builders - to provide for the safety and comfort of others.
Harry McLean had some ten sets of plates cast setting out this poem, each set comprised four plates with the complete poem. He built cairns at his work sites, where a worker had been killed, and the plates were fixed one on each of four sides. I set out below the cairns I have either seen or have details.
I had difficulty in putting names on the map at the top so I will cover these from east to west.
Guysborough Nova Scotia. This railway was never completed for political reasons but Dominion Construction did a great amount of work on it. Colin Churcher photo.
Grand Falls New Brunswick. This was a large storage dam. Photo by Al Rivard.
Quebec City. Dominion Construction built the line through the tunnel to Wolf Cove. It is not certain whether the cairn still exists. Photo believed to have been taken by Dennis Peters.
Moosonee, Ontario at the northern terminus of the Ontario Northland Railway. The plates have been removed. Photo by Steve Watson.
Abitibi Canyon, Ontario. Photo by Steve Watson.
Churchill, Manitoba. This is the mystery tenth cairn. A mystery because McLean was not involved in the construction of the line to Hudsons Bay.
There is also a cairn at Flin Flon, Manitoba
Washburn, North Dakota. This is at City Park and McLean intended to dedicate it to "King John" Satterlund, an old friend of his father and of the McLean family. It was erected in August 1952.
The full version of this poem can be found at several places on the web but I will show here the plates from Grand Falls. These were produced over a number of years and there were some variations in the scrollwork.
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