The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1898-02-08
l. B. Young Who Knows "Old
Prosperity" We'll.
is IN HONOLULU AGAIN
Did a Great Work Here-First Off
Shore Pumping = With Three
Other PIants-In Guatemala.

of the country, and more particularly
of Honolulu, he is an important figure.
The gentleman does not unduly pride
himself on the part he has played III
the development OF the local trade. Tc
date he has not been bv the public
assigned any station Of honor Or els
tinction. That will come with ais Obi
tuary perhaps. L. B. Young will live
a long time yet. He is tall man Of
rather spare construction and mas
dark or brownish beard with hole
shaved out of the middle of it. He
speaks slowly, modestly and on his
tongue there is an intimation that as
a boy he was at home in either Norway
or Sweden. Mr.. Young of late years
has been a builder and operator of
the famous and valuable type of dredg-
ing plants represented fairly by the
machine now under command of Cap
tain Paul Smith here. For long
time he was with the San Francisco
Bridge Company, but is at present dis
engaged. At present he hopes to be-
come identified with local corpora
ton in some work of considerable mag
nitude
L. B. Young is in the Islands for the
third time. In 1882, he was with E. G..
Hitchcock on plantation of Hawaii
and for a period after that with a
city painter. Then he went back to
the States and returning in 1892 work
ed on the dredger and gave it the trial
runs. He was the manager during all
the work of deepening the channel so
that deep ships might come inside in
stead of being lightered from the road
stead, which had been the slow and
costly custom for many, many years.
Mr.. Young is more proud Of the work
he did here than of any contract or
undertaking with which he has been
connected. 1t is good deal, he thinks,
for a man in the business to be able
to say he has been identified with
probably the most successful piece OF
off-shore dredging ever attempted.
The dredger here, named by Lorrin
A. Thurston prosperity" is the first
of four installed by Mr.. Young. He
says that of course a number of i'm
provements have been added since the
first model was made, but that in all
the principal points Old Prosperity
is the equal of any of them and has
worn astonishingly well. Mr.. Young
does say that the dredged was made
to handle sand and mud and that her
continuous use on rock will have its
serious effect in time. He adds that
Captain Smith has done eXcellently
with the dredger.
Another dredger like Prosperity
has done twenty miles of deepening
ON the st. Johns river, Florida and
is now doing harbor work in Texas.
1t has made great records and has
piled up fortunes for it's owners. A
third was built at Boston and works
in that vicinity earning enormous div
idends for big syndicate.
The fourth and to now the last
dredger of the type of the local stand
by is owned by the Government OF
Guatemala and thereby suspends the
narrative of the chief troubles of Mr.
Young. For taking charge of the
work of construction and trial he was
given, besides a handsome salary, an
interest in the proceeds of the enter
prise. In the best time on record there
was finished perfect as ingenuity, Sc
lected material and careful skilled
labor could produce. The intention
was to have a plant that would run
night and day Indefinitely and remove
more earth per minute than had ever
before been handled. Mr. Young says
the machine is in every respect q
beauty and a bonanza. The first con-
tract was to be for in the neighborhood
of a million dollars worth of work
Operations beyond that, to perfect &
system of channels and basins would
make the work in sight aggregate the
figure of at least ten millions of dol
lars. likely much more. Small won
der the material was the very best an(
that parts liable to breakage were pro
Vided in the duplicate and triplicate
The dredger was given trial runs fol
a month and Mr. Young says that fol
the various bottoms she sucked ou
streams of almost solid mud or sand
Even the shrewd and clever Ameri
cans down there were surprised ant
the Government officials were 81
amazed that some of them forgot t.
place on file their applications for per
quisites usual to the penalties of con
tracing in that country. Mr.. Youn;
and his people were delighted with tn
outlook. The prospects could not hav
been better Everything was in readi
ness to move along the first channel
Just then the biggest revolution il
three years exploded and Presiden
Barrios, with all his money and gun
and soldiers and statesmen was bus.
with the affair for half a year. TIL
contractors were implored to wait
Wait they did till it became eviden
that all public improvement opera
tions had been Indefinitely postponed
1t will take four or five years to ge
the Guatemala treasury in shap
again and then its fatness may be to
much for those who follow the trad
of reform and revolution in that zone
1t is clear and striking example @